


SASO BR6 Dump

by stephanericher



Series: SASO 17 [23]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/F, Gen, M/M, Other, Selfcest, Threesome - F/M/M, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:02:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 88
Words: 38,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: all the sfw knb stuff i wrote for saso br6





	1. aohimu, to the victor go the spoils

Tatsuya leans on him the whole way home; his legs are still shaking and he almost falls in the shower but fakes like he slips, as if someone who’s spent as long as he has perfecting their balance is going to slip with a bath mat under his feet. Daiki catches him, still wearing his own shorts, Tatsuya glaring with all the force left in him (apparently more important than standing upright, but that’s Tatsuya for you). He thinks about wanting to drag Tatsuya home for sex, his own stamina depleted but still good for something sloppy and lazy, how Tatsuya might last two minutes if Daiki were to sink down and blow him right now, if he could even get it up.   
  
But it’s not responsible of Daiki to push him farther, and while Daiki’s never been all too concerned with that someone’s got to take care of Tatsuya and it’s not going to be himself right now. He’s not going to quit; he’s going to close his eyes and see all the shot’s he’s missed over and over again, positioning on the court on the inside of his eyelids like an imaginary round of Tetris or Minesweeper after you’ve spent too much time staring at a mindlessly simple computer game all day. Daiki can make him come home but he can’t make Tatsuya leave it be, even in his dreams, so he rolls over and hugs Tatsuya close to him.  
  
They’re both sore in the morning, Daiki almost like he’d zoned (had they really gone that hard, done that much?) and Tatsuya like he shouldn’t be getting out of bed but he’s so used to pushing himself that he does it anyway, all the raw lurching out of his motions (even with the Tylenol he thinks he’s taking discreetly, that’s got to make everything scream) by the middle of breakfast. But Daiki had seen it, and it makes him feel a little bit (he scolds himself for thinking it) special. Tatsuya, stripped of the perfect exterior.  
  
Convincing him to take a day to rest is easier than Daiki had expected, maybe because he’s really that exhausted and maybe because the brunt of wisdom, of logic, that even if Tatsuya hates being patient he can’t go hard and wear down his muscles every second of every day if he wants them to grow stronger. But it still means Tatsuya curled up in his lap, falling asleep with his face relaxing from its creases and his grip relaxing from around Daiki’s arm (like if he holds tightly enough he’ll siphon off some of Daiki’s talent). To the victor go the spoils, and, well. If Tatsuya would only let Daiki spoil him more than this.


	2. aohimu, taste like you

The Western Conference had dominated the scene for most of Himuro’s childhood and early adulthood, but this year’s victory (meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but fuck it) is the third in a row for the East. And this year, much more than last year, he can’t wait to get away from the festivities, from posing with teammates for photos (even if a few are with Aomine and Himuro can casually miss putting his arm around Aomine’s waist and get his ass instead and Aomine can look at him like he wants to grab Himuro’s ass back but, quite unfortunately, does not) and slapping guys on the back and telling them what a good game they’d had. He weasels out of the major party plans again, making himself scarce and dealing with the razzing when the younger guys call him an old man.  
  
He sure as hell doesn’t feel old when he’s up in the suite with Aomine’s hands all over him, the bottle of vodka that’s probably going to become their standard, some sort of stupid inside joke, as long as they’re together and invited to these things (maybe it’s too soon to think of it like this, like something closer to permanent, even though right now he knows Aomine wants it to be—and maybe he does, too).  
  
“Do I taste like me to you?” Aomine says between kisses, his hands fiddling with the buttons on Himuro’s shirt, opening them from the middle out, the least efficient Himuro thinks until Aomine slides his hand through to cover Himuro’s chest, rough pad of his thumb in a line down Himuro’s sternum.  
  
“Yeah,” Himuro says, kissing him again, the taste unfamiliar to him last year but so solid in his mind now, the spice and tartness in his mouth, remains of sweet milky coffee and red Powerade, whatever Aomine tastes on him that he seemingly just can’t get enough of.  
  
He looks like he feels drunk already, sitting up to just grin at Himuro, silly and kind of awestruck, and, oh, fuck. Himuro wants to kiss him again, but maybe that’s just to avoid the way Aomine looking at him like this makes him feel. Hot inside, melting like a planet core stretched by Aomine’s gravity. A year ago, Himuro would have made himself a stiff drink, chugged down four shots’ worth of vodka straight from the bottle, but this year he smiles back and kisses Aomine more slowly than his impulses tell him to.


	3. kagahimualex, not without you

Alex could say a lot of things right now, marvel about Taiga being tournament MVP the way she’s wanted to since before Taiga won it (she’d known; it had been so obvious how gaudy his stat line was in both simple and advanced stats, how he’d shut down the powerful Argentinian offense at the end of the second quarter in the semifinals almost by himself, how she’d say he deserves it from the start but he’d earned it fifty times over) even knowing that he’d go back to the team, to the medal around his neck, to the minutes he didn’t play. She could let herself burn with jealousy, the medal she’d been poised to compete for herself ripped away by circumstances, but this isn’t about her.   
  
And she knows Tatsuya’s a little bit the same (probably dealt with it on his own, earlier), from a different direction but the same things pulling on him, but love and desire winning out in the end, the desire to show Taiga just how wonderful he is, in a way he knows but almost doesn’t seem to sometimes.   
  
“Congratulations,” Alex whispers, tracing a circle around the medal on Taiga’s bare chest, watching as he bites his lip and almost shudders at the sensation, gold and flesh against flesh. “You did so well.”  
  
“That late three,” Tatsuya says, leaning in to kiss Taiga full on the mouth.  
  
“That pass out,” Alex continues. “All those blocks.”  
  
“Every rebound.”  
  
Taiga makes a sound in the back of his throat, like he wants the attention but doesn’t know how to handle it, like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how he’s going to express himself. Alex scrapes her teeth over his chest, an effort to let him know that he can always just touch them. He can always just say it however he can, and they’ll get it.   
  
“Couldn’t have done it without you guys,” he says. “I wouldn’t have basketball without you.”  
  
(Sometimes Alex thinks he would have found it anyway, perhaps on different terms, perhaps not the same; Tatsuya’s expressed the sentiment to her, too. But Alex isn’t the type of person to deflect credit when she sees her own hustle, her own cheating in for a closer shot, and she sees so much of Tatsuya, too—the constant internal where am I going with the ball when I get it and it’s when not if, the arc of his jumper and the memories that come flooding back of sitting by the fence thinking maybe her job here’s done when Tatsuya’s explaining so patiently how to get the footwork down that once summer.)  
  
They don’t have to say anything, because they both fit in his arms when he hugs them closer, all three of them squished together, still not tight enough.


	4. haizaki & kise, flower shop au

Haizaki’s trying not to grind his teeth; he really is. All he fucking wants to do is give Akashi a piece of his mind, Akashi who loves talking about his stupid fucking gardening and flower arranging, Akashi who’s definitely going to know exactly what he means when he gives him the shittiest flowers he can find (and come on, pretty boy behind the counter, don’t say you don’t have any; just because you shock the shelves doesn’t mean you’re probably not sneering at consumers’ shitty tastes).   
  
“Then just - use that flower language thing. About red roses meaning love, white roses meaning innocence, that stuff. Make a bouquet that says I hate you,” Haizaki says.   
  
(That ought to be enough, right? Actually get his meaning across so he can stop wasting his time and get on showing Akashi?) The pretty boy looks like he’s going to talk back again but then wisely seems to remember that the customer is always right, giving a cutesy little smile that probably makes all the girls shriek but is faker than than the dewdrops made out of glue on a fraying plastic rose. Please. Haizaki waits to sneer before the guy goes to the back (he does, after all, call Haizaki “sir”) but he still does it, and maybe it’s still on his face when he gets back.   
  
“Here you go.”  
  
It’s a trash looking bouquet, all right; half the flowers are wilted and the colors don’t seem to go together at all, purple and orange and some white flowers that hadn’t absorbed all of the red dye that had been placed in their water. Haizaki’s not sure what kind they are, not that it really matters (not that he gives a damn about the language of flowers).  
  
“And you’re sure it says fuck you?”   
  
Pretty Boy rattles off a list of flower names, as if that’s supposed to impress Haizaki or something (whatever, nice to know he’s learned something doing this job for however the fuck long he has). And then the charge on the cash register appears, way too fucking overpriced but whatever. Haizaki’s gotten to this point, anyway; Akashi’s not the only one who can throw his money around.  
  
“May I ask what the recipient did?” Pretty Boy asks (nosy, too, but it’s not like Haizaki wouldn’t want to know).  
  
“He kicked me off our basketball team,” says Haizaki, practically spitting the words as he heads toward the door, kicking over a bucket of bright pink flowers that look like they’re mocking him even worse than Akashi ever has.


	5. nijihimu, always leaving

It’s strange to think of Tatsuya as gone now, when he’d always been leaving. He’d let Shuuzou coax him into bed with the implication of staying over hanging in the air and then he’d leave in the middle of the night, sneaking out in the quiet way Shuuzou had mostly stopped doing with his parents years ago, only now he's on the other side. Tatsuya would leave him at the street court, disappear into the shadows when Shuuzou was distracted, as if he was an illusion, a mirage, never really there in the first place.  
  
But Tatsuya who’s leaving is different than Tatsuya who has left; before there was always the feeling that he’d come back again, always the hope that this time Shuuzou could grab onto him, solid fingers on solid flesh, and keep him, however selfish or bad or wrong that might have been. There was the thought that maybe he wasn’t real, except it would get blown away, the physical messages on Shuuzou’s phone screen, the bite marks on his skin (the way Tatsuya would always leave behind something of himself on Shuuzou, a reminder to say to both of them that he was really there). But now that he’s an ocean away, the doubt creeps up, stupid and useless, that maybe Shuuzou had made up the whole thing. A boy too beautiful to be real, a personality too nebulous and vague to take shape, because Shuuzou hadn’t decided on it.   
  
This is a desert and it’s full of mirages, but the cold ache of missing Tatsuya is all too real. It’s comforting in a twisted sort of way, validating Shuuzou’s other feelings. It’s standing on the court with Tatsuya’s old teammates (for lack of a better word, usual pickup game companion doesn’t have the same ring to it), an empty fifth spot, and none of them saying his name but thinking about him all the same, passes to where he’d be and none of them have the same clear vision, the same drive to convert every play into a shot, the same point of view the games had always come to focus on. The things that Shuuzou’s been relying on without realizing he has, absent again.   
  
He wishes Tatsuya was here; he wishes they could be playing together, with or against each other, rather than him here in Tatsuya’s scene and Tatsuya over there in what had once been Shuuzou’s (if he could lay that much of a claim to it, which judging by the occasional LINE messages he exchanges with Akashi or Kubota is a solid no—he wants to ask them about Tatsuya, if they’d played against him, if they’d seen this guy with this kind of shot and that kind of face, but, well, better to leave that alone just in case).


	6. mayuaka, history repeats itself

History repeats itself, or at least people parrot the phrase. Chihiro has been the village priest for many years now; he, too, has taken in a child whose parents are long gone, rumors of their disappearance swirling like water in the river under the rotting bridge in a storm. It is good, Chihiro decides, that the bridge has decayed this much; it doesn’t tempt or seem quite as legendary, forces people to spread their imaginations elsewhere (though they always end up spreading the same sort of stupid rumors).   
  
The child, though, is preoccupied; she draws the bridge in the small sketchbook that Chihiro regrets buying her, its image captured with all the perspective and spatial awareness that should not be there in a child of her age. Spooky, the other children call her. She keeps drawing, face unblinking like a slab (Chihiro is often blamed for raising her wrong, as if her artistic talent or predisposition to be quiet are his fault, not that he really cares).  
  
“Are there spirits on the other side of the bridge?” she asks at dinner.  
  
Chihiro shovels more rice into his mouth and waits before speaking. “Who told you there were?”  
  
The child shrugs. “Everyone says. I’ve never seen one.”  
  
“That’s bullshit," says Chihiro. “The only thing on that bridge is mold and water damage.”  
  
She nods, her face a blank as usual, but something in her eyes, something that reminds Chihiro of a memory that doesn’t leave him alone, of bright eyes, red and gold like autumn leaves. History repeats itself, but spirits (if they exist, which they do not; as a priest Chihiro considers himself pretty educated on the farce of religion) exist outside of time. They are the stuff of legend, appearing in a line that never quite fades out from book to book. Maybe she’s been reading too many books; Chihiro certainly had at her age.  
  
There are flashes of red and yellow now and again in her summer drawings, at the edges of the frame, a smudge almost like a mistake, but a colored pencil she would not have picked up and pressed to the page by accident. Her marks are deliberate; the colors shine against the muted dark green of the woods and overgrowth and of the river, the grey and brown and black of the rotting wooden bridge. She does not explain it, and Chihiro does not ask. Some things are better left unsaid.


	7. mayuaka, the way things were

It’s obvious that something’s pulling on Reo’s mind, more than the usual things like trying to fit studying for every test in around basketball and homework and any semblance of a social life, something that Reo—always inclined to talk things through—is keeping quiet about. Eikichi’s pretty patient, but he’s not that patient, and there’s only so much of Reo staring into space and looking distraught he can take.  
  
“What’s up?”  
  
“Oh!” says Reo, snapping out of it. “I’m. It’s—well.”  
  
Reo sighs, letting out a breath that Eikichi can almost feel from the next chair over (their dorm common room is tiny, but it’s not that tiny). Even Kotarou looks up from his calculus homework, when he’d been muttering some mnemonic for the chain rule just a minute ago.   
  
“Mayuzumi-san asked me about Sei-chan earlier today.”  
  
“What about him?”  
  
“About...how he used to be. When we were all in middle school.”  
  
(No need to revisit that time in history, Eikichi remembers all of it all too well, but especially the Akashi that had led that killing machine that was Teikou, how different he’d been than the Akashi who had showed up at the beginning of April.)  
  
“And?” says Kotarou.  
  
“And I don’t like him messing around in it. This is none of our business, especially if Sei-chan is helping us win like this. If this is what he needs to do, then…I don’t know.”  
  
“You think Mayu-san has an ulterior motive,” says Kotarou.  
  
Eikichi snorts. “What, he’s sabotaging the team?”  
  
“Well he very well could end up doing that!” says Reo.  
  
“You think he loves Akashi,” says Kotarou in a singsong voice that Eikcihi hasn’t heard any of his peers use since he was maybe ten or eleven.   
  
“I think he has a crush he’d be stupid to pursue.”   
  
“Wait,” says Eikichi. “Mayuzumi? Likes Akashi?”  
  
Reo sighs, as if Eikichi is a small child who needs to have the same basic concept explained to him multiple times. “He’s asking all of these questions. He keeps on looking at Sei-chan, like he’s fascinated. He wants to get to know the real Sei-chan, and for our closed-off snide upperclassman, that’s practically confessing right there.”  
  
“So?” says Eikichi. “So what if he does? Maybe if they start dating Mayuzumi will be nicer, and then their chemistry will translate to the court or something.”  
  
Both Reo and Kotarou are giving Eikichi the same kind of unimpressed look, as if he really doesn’t get it. And maybe he really doesn’t, because he’s not sure what the hell’s going on.


	8. mayuhimu, division

The world is supposed to divide itself neatly into two, before and after, a fresh sheet of paper added to the timeline. It’s supposed to when the relationship is pivotal enough, but Chihiro supposes that this one simply hadn’t been. Strange that he'd expected it to be, wanted to give it more weight and at the same time withheld, withdrew, in a way that made Tatsuya want to chase because he knew he wouldn’t end up with Chihiro in his hands, letting him in and not knowing what to do with him (both of them calling the other’s bluff, and Chihiro would rather stay here than screw with Tatsuya in that way).  
  
The drunken hookups had escalated to a relationship, living mostly together, Tatsuya in Chihiro’s apartment telling him to take the ashtray out on the patio, Tatsuya trying to get him to smile and be a little bit more fake free. It’s something Chihiro wishes he could have called Tatsuya on, that they could have had a big blowout fight, because it had ended the way it had started, abrupt and shaking, Tatsuya pushed toward a decision of moving back home. Chihiro could have followed; he can write anywhere with the right converter for his laptop plug even if he can’t speak the languages of Tatsuya’s neighborhood, navigate the streets or get comfortable driving in a car with the wheel on the wrong side.   
  
There had been a before Tatsuya, a during Tatsuya, an after Tatsuya, but nothing so neat of phase, like the moon in the sky, like Tatsuya sitting on the step, Tatsuya palming the ever-present basketball (pulling him to the past, a part of time that had brought Chihiro and Tatsuya to acquaintanceship but a part Chihiro would like to leave behind, a phase that he has let go of—and maybe all of this is Tatsuya's fault, his messy lack of ability to compartmentalize, Chihiro spilling over from acquaintance to lover to former cohabitant, but he’d let Tatsuya get away with it so it’s his own damn fault, too).   
  
But it’s enough, Chihiro thinks, enough of the life experience all his writing teachers have told him he should have, that he can’t sit back and observe and record, he has to know what he writes, write what he knows. He’d used Tatsuya for his body, for the good head he gave and those hollowed-out cheeks better than anything Chihiro could conjure up on the page at the time (he’s since improved). And now he’s got Tatsuya to use for material, the memory of him that will eventually fade and cover itself with Chihiro’s idea of how things were (the more times you recall something, the farther from reality it becomes).


	9. aokaga, cinderella

“Real cute, you know,” Aomine says, leaning over the kitchen counter. “Like you’re Cinderella and I’m the prince.”  
  
Kagami snorts. “Some prince.”  
  
“Hey, I came after you—the only boy whose foot fit the slipper.”  
  
“I'm pretty sure Cinderella’s prince didn’t drop her shoe on the floor and call her an asshole.”  
  
“Maybe he should have!”  
  
“The shoe would break and she wasn’t being an asshole; she needed to get home so her horrible family wouldn’t abuse her more. I don’t know how you can even compare the situations.”  
  
“I mean, it’s just the shoe,” says Aomine. “It fits and stuff.”  
  
“What if my feet get bigger?” says Kagami.  
  
Aomine straightens up, dropping an arm around his shoulder, and—it had been sort of obvious before, when they’d been guarding each other and both times they’d kissed, but Kagami’s definitely closing the height gap. Aomine looks at him with something that looks like alarm and annoyance and maybe something else, like the way he’d looked after Kagami had kissed him, the thing that had made him bolt in the first place.   
  
“I’m still taller. So my feet are going to get bigger first, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” says Kagami, raising an eyebrow. “But what if I get taller than you? Like, five inches taller or something?”  
  
“Gimme some of your steroids, then,” says Aomine, grinning.  
  
Usually by this point when he’s touching Kagami, he pulls away; this time he still feels comfortable and Kagami could make a crack about enjoying his leverage of a centimeter or so while he’s still got it, but he doesn’t want to make the situation awkward. He doesn’t want Aomine to pull away. He kind of wants to kiss Aomine again, but wonders if it’s too soon, because they still haven’t talked about it, really. Whether they’re going to keep doing this, pretend it never happened (they’re even now, aren’t they?) or Aomine’s going to say something weird about it.  
  
And then he leans closer, resting his head on Kagami’s shoulder and yawning.  
  
“Don’t fall asleep on me,” says Kagami.  
  
“You kissed me first,” says Aomine.  
  
“That’s not—“ says Kagami. “I want to kiss you; I don’t want to have to hold you up in the middle of my kitchen.”  
  
He feels his face flush; it’s a little bit closer to a confession of sorts, but then again hadn’t the kiss been enough of one already? He needs to stop overthinking it, simplify it a bit.  
  
“Comes with the territory,” says Aomine. “I’ll kiss you again, though, if you want it.”


	10. aokise, give me a reason

What leads up to a breakup isn’t just one thing. If your partner cheated, they’d done it for a reason, because you weren’t available or they’d been looking for a reason to cut you loose because of some deeper problem, or because they weren’t good at monogamy but you were. If you fell out of love, it was a gradual thing, not a reason but a billion steps that could have diverged. If you were Kise, if you are Kise, it’s a little bit like that, except you’re still halfway in love with a man who doesn’t want you all that much anymore.  
  
He loves the things around you that form the outline of your shape, the expensive presents you give him and the way it’s so easy for you to fit together, your mess joining his mess in the apartment you share, and on the rare nights he stays over at what’s nominally your place, his old sweatpants that fit you just as well and his brand of canned vegetables in the pantry. But it’s been a long time since he was able to see you for you, a long time since he’d tried.   
  
And in the end, he amounts to just a collection of stuff at Aomine’s place, shaving cream and shampoo and mineral water that he leaves in the fridge, the blue coffee mug that’s always his in the morning (and that stays too), things he can toss into a duffel bag.  
  
“So that’s it?” Aomine says, like he’d expected Kise to say, as if he believes everything will just right itself, as if he can’t see that they barely know each other anymore.  
  
Kise continues to shove his crap into the bag, a couple of shirts he wants to keep, a toothbrush that he doesn’t really need but he’s taking just because, his concert DVDs, that probably-empty Starbucks card on the bedside table.  
  
“Ten years and you’re gone, just like that?”  
  
Kise looks at him, just once, letting the exhaustion flood through him, the way that used to make Aomine come over and try to solve the problems he’d been less equipped to deal with than Kise, but he’d cheer Kise up with his inane suggestions and dumb masculine posturing. Except this time he’s just standing in the doorway, filling it like Kise’s the only one he wants to confront.  
  
“Then give me a reason to stay,” Kise says (but the battle’s already lost, isn’t it; if Aomine hasn’t by now, if he can’t think of one—it’s no use; it’s no use).


	11. aokise, volcano

They come together in an explosion, but that’s how it had to happen. Satsuki calls it something she could see coming from a mile away, a car crash from two vehicles spinning out on the freeway until they collide and leave a mass of rubberneckers slowing down traffic all around them. Maybe they’d been circling each other like birds of prey; maybe it’s just a tangle of beaks and feathers and the talons of a raptor.  
  
It’s a beautiful explosion, the kind that gets splashed on the front pages of the papers and etched in the collective memories, an image of the bursting flames, the clouds of smoke, the symmetrical shape of the air moving purely wrong. Daiki knows going in that it’s not going to last, the release of all the feelings he’d built up, amusement and fascination and lust and competitiveness pressing against the dam until it bursts, rushing over dry land to meet Ryouta’s, much the same; his is tinged with looking up and looking at Daiki as an equal, with all of his feelings for basketball; with them it’s always going to be pretty fucking complicated.   
  
Except the sex isn’t complicated at all. They’ve always been a physical match, even when Ryouta was trying to get close to catching up to Daiki on the court, even when their bodies were still growing at uneven rates, even when the scales tipped over and Daiki fell hard like Ryouta had just jumped off the fucking seesaw his talent was so high, and it was Daiki catching up from the wrong side. But they know each other; they’ve been reading each other’s bodies forever; this part’s inevitable, a consequence of feelings (built up more like plaque on teeth without a proper cleaning, Daiki thinks, than any other comparison he would have used two seconds ago) and a clash of flesh on flesh, mouth on mouth on skin, a competition in another form, the same prize of mutual satisfaction that there’s always been.  
  
But it’s like a volcano, blowing off the side of the mountain; it’s never going to be the same, their relationship as it was, as it was supposed to be. The things that are irrevocable, the fruit long out of reach tasting nowhere near as sweet as they’d imagined it to be. Necessary, the collateral damage being only each other, but at least now they’re free of it, thrown back their separate ways.


	12. momoriko, pov teppei

It starts—well, Teppei’s not exactly sure when it starts. Maybe the seeds are planted before he comes back, or maybe he’s not paying the right kind of attention to see it right away. And Momoi’s pretty sly (it takes one to know one); she works in the shadows better than Kuroko because she doesn’t draw attention to that part of her. And gradually, her affections transfer; it’s not like some molecule making its way across a membrane but it’s not like one day she’s all over Kuroko and the next she’s all over Riko.  
  
But there’s a time when it’s the former, and then later a time when it’s the latter, and, well, Riko certainly seems to be enjoying the attention. Maybe she doesn’t get it, the lingering looks and the way Momoi plays with her hair, dropping the always poised facade and acting like the lovestruck teenage girl she is, but by the time Riko looks back Momoi’s gathering her hair to push behind her shoulders or sticking her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. It's cute, but if Riko doesn’t do anything about it—she’s no chicken, but it’s frustrating just to watch, sometimes.  
  
(“What does this have to do with me?” Riko says.  
  
“You haven't noticed?” says Teppei.  
  
“Noticed what?”)  
  
That does it, but that’s the plan, after all, from the shadows for Riko’s own good (though, truthfully, Teppei’s a little surprised that Momoi hasn’t made a more overt move herself, but, well—he supposes he doesn’t really know her that well). And it’s better this way, to watch everything unfold, the way Riko suddenly seems to realize that everything around her is what it is, the way she blushes with awareness of herself, in Momoi’s vicinity, of the way Momoi touches her and whispers things in her ear.   
  
Of course, it actually happens when he’s not there, but Teppei doesn’t need to be privy to all the little details. He just gets to see it, Riko blushing and happy, Riko distracted from her job, Momoi’s excuses growing flimsier and flimsier until they’re thinner than plastic wrap, tissue paper, the surface of a soap bubble. It doesn’t really matter, but they’re cute to look at, cute when Momoi gets a little bit possessive (like Teppei and Riko could be anything anymore, like either of them want that—Hyuuga, maybe, but Teppei can’t thank Momoi enough for getting him all wound up and twisted, providing easy entertainment to the afternoon until he complains too much and Teppei can pawn him off on Izuki).


	13. momoriko, first kiss

She feels good in Satsuki’s arms, good after having to deal with Daiki and Tetsu and all the other boys who are varying degrees of hopeless. Good without any qualifier or comparison, her frame small and lithe, perfect for letting Satsuki lead except Satsuki knows she’s not going to do that. And Satsuki’s got experience with clueless boys who try to lead but don’t know how—Riko’s head and shoulders above them.  
  
Satsuki’s still the better dancer, though, and she can grab back the lead; she doesn’t have to say that this is a demonstration (though that excuse will melt like candy stuck in her mouth too long, sooner rather than later) and that the boys need to see the taller person leading. Riko’s steps follow her, backwards and forwards, across the gym, and Satsuki wonders for a second what would happen if she were to place her hand lower, lower on Riko’s back. It’s less of a wonder and more of a knowledge that it’s not something she’d do at this point in this time and that Riko would push her right off. An intrusive thought, but is it really intrusive if she lets it in and opens the door for it, ushering it inside?  
  
From the look on Riko’s face, perhaps Satsuki’s idle fantasies on bus rides when she gets bored with manipulating the statistics are closer to reality than she’d let herself believe. Staying on the safe side of the calculation in this instance, because the risk isn’t basketball; the risk is her and the risk is Riko. The risk blooming on her cheeks brighter than any makeup she’s ever worn, the risk in her hands on Riko’s waist, Riko leaning closer. The music slows, the way it does when they cut back to the main couple in a cheesy teen movie.  
  
Satsuki doesn’t kiss Riko, nor does she wish she had. Their first kiss shouldn’t be in the middle of the gymnasium with her entire team.   
  
Rather, she kisses Riko a week later, walking her home after scouting the younger Seirin players (a cover for scouting Riko, pausing in the notes neatly across her clipboard to look up and meet Riko’s eyes, the way Riko’s gaze immediately shifts in a way that she can’t even hide, the way Riko blows on her whistle a little bit too forcefully). They talk on the way, about what Satsuki can’t really remember too much. The kiss forces it all out of her mind.


	14. akamido, four seasons

Winter

  
  
Everything ends. That’s an absolute, a true one; Akashi’s absolutes are not always true. He ends; he breaks; he re-forms again, the him that was and the him that is switching places, castling on a chess board, king and rook. It’s like holding his breath under the water until he passes out and waking up with his head above the ice, thinking wildly of nothing and everything. The game, the loss, the teammates who should not be speaking to him (the way Mibuchi and Hayama look at him; he accepts it as he deserves it). In the evening his thoughts are clearer, and Midorima rises to their surface, graceful the way he moves on the court, that shooting motion, that wingspan, that voice, that - person who by all accounts should not want to talk to Akashi. But he does; Akashi knows this, clear and absolute like a note on the violin after a rest that waited just a little too long.  
  


Fall

  
  
Rakuzan is strong. Shutoku is a legendary king, but Rakuzan is the Emperor of Creation; it’s only natural that they should win. With every battle comes a victory and this is no different. It is no different to see the despair in Midorima’s eyes, the ways in which he has changed, the things he would not have said when they had recognized each other differently. The burden and the brunt is on Akashi, his changes the most visible and blatant, but that doesn’t make Midorima’s any less real.   
  


Summer

  
  
Sometimes Midorima looks at Akashi as if he knows, as if he sees the waters rising inside of Akashi, the tension in wires across his mind. Midorima ought to, seeing as he watches Akashi so closely; he pays the most obvious attention in the most obvious of ways (flattering, but they can’t; it’s better for both of them this way). And it’s not as if Midorima could do anything, if he caught Akashi in a kiss that would undo the things that are trying to claw their way through Akashi and rip him open from the inside out.  
  


Spring

  
  
Midorima is a match. Not in terms of skill; he’s still so very rough, still underdeveloped physically, his fine motor skills are there but have yet to explode; his smart shots and dutiful arpeggios, exacting moves of tiles on the shogi board—it all has yet to be the something that it will come. Akashi’s good at finding potential, but Midorima hadn’t needed to be found, even if he doesn’t know any of this himself yet. He almost tells Midorima that he looks forward to what he’ll someday become, but that’s too inappropriate to say to one’s peer. He’ll just leave it unsaid and watch Midorima unfold, the long movements of his orchestral piece, the way the instrument of him falls into tune.


	15. akamido, violin and piano

There is no way to get him out, none that Midorima knows, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to try. Midorima hasn’t devoted his life to classical music, the study of fourths and fifths and hemiolas and syncopations, learning the same piece backwards and forwards and still searching for perfection, knowing the time he plays it best he’ll never be able to replicate quite the same way again, learning to conduct, sharp motions of a baton and intuition of where the musicians are and who he needs to coax out and who must be told to fall back, don’t drown out the other sections—he has not learned all of that just to not use it, to turn the forest against itself, the sheets of paper and the sharpness of Akashi’s violin, tuned so the strings are close to breaking, to pull him out to safety.  
  
Not safety, there is nothing safe about the marriage of piano and violin, strings scraped and bowed versus the strings struck by the hammers so far away from the fingers that control them. But there is safety in familiarity, in the way they used to work, the way they would listen, the way Akashi no longer really listens to anything but himself. The way he tries t o pull Midorima forward and back, control the tempo when it should be the other way around. When Akashi should be able to rest on Midorima’s foundation to make the strings vibrate through the air, create the mood.   
  
But then Akashi fires him, and Midorima is left to a newly-formed chamber ensemble, its leader on the double bass with steady hands and even keel, its members loud and uncouth and not like Akashi at all. Akashi is moving on to the things he calls better, except there’s no pianist in his quartet (or is it quintet, Midorima’s never quite sure). It doesn’t mean Akashi’s waiting for him, not consciously, but it means a chance. Something to capture, the way their hands had been linked, the callouses from the right spot on the violin strings like ghosts on Midorima’s palm in a dream, the reams of sheet music to go through, to find a way out. For both of them.  
  
(A way out, and a way back in, to Akashi, his thoughts—to know which Akashi is the real one, the one who had been pushed, or the one with whom Midorima had fallen in love?)


	16. nijihimu, in the air

There is so much possibility, thick in the air like tea oversaturated with honey, that Shuuzou thinks for a second he might be paralyzed with it all. What to do first, to kiss Tatsuya one way or the other or to whisper in his ear how much he’s missed him, to get back to saying all the thoughts he’s sort of organized about how goddamn wonderful Tatsuya is—but the order isn’t perfect and they’ve got time, now. Time, so much to say and do, so much that Shuuzou doesn’t want to overwhelm Tatsuya, but time to let it unfold like a map in the shotgun seat of a car.  
  
“Hey,” Shuuzou says, kissing Tatsuya’s nose, watching him scrunch up his face just a little.  
  
He looks a little brighter, stands a little taller, as if he’d shed some of the dark weight hanging over him, but Shuuzou doesn’t want to talk about that directly right now, in part because Tatsuya doesn’t, either. He’s just gotten back; he’s fresh with the glow of someone fitting back into the spot saved for him, making it expand to his new dimensions, with all the energy in the air just from how happy Shuuzou is to see him again. And this time, instead of flinching away, holding SHuuzou at arms length in some way or other, Tatsuya falls into Shuuzou’s arms and fits himself there against Shuuzou’s chest. Shuuzou kisses his ear, his cheek, the side of his mouth, twines their fingers together like the strands of a rope.   
  
“I missed you so much,” he says, and Tatsuya’s not ready to say it back but he hugs Shuuzou tighter and that alone speaks at a hundred decibels.  
  
There are new road maps of moles on his shoulders, a triangle and a constellation, the northern sun in Akita, the fist he makes relaxed now, the way he lets Shuuzou take his time, the way he’s taking his own time relearning Shuuzou’s body, frowning at the differences until he reconciles them with what’s in his head, the history that’s still unfolding between them, the infinity map, the expanding universe of moments, touches, words.   
  
It makes Shuuzou feel a little more secure now, everything he’d saved up coming up halfway, because there’s always so much more to draw from, bottomless rivers of how much Tatsuya is, how much he means. Yeah, Shuuzou’s got it really bad, but there’s no shame in admitting that.


	17. nijihimu, poetry

There are so many new things about Shuu, things Tatsuya hadn’t been able to quite get over Skype or email or text, like how much taller he’s gotten, how broad his shoulders are, the different way they fit together (a way that Tatsuya wouldn’t have been able to accept before when it had seemed like everyone else was getting bigger and more fit for basketball than him, another complaint to add to his laundry list of frustrations, but now seems comforting and so right). There’s the way he touches Tatsuya now, more sure and fond, the new way Tatsuya touches him back. There’s the confidence with which he speaks English, the way he forms sentences without hesitation, the clarity in his sentences—helped, perhaps, by the volumes of poetry books, the dictionaries, all that lines the shelves on his desk, the way his vocabulary has blown up exponentially (his SAT verbal might be better than Tatsuya’s).   
  
“Why the interest in poetry?” Tatsuya says.  
  
Shuu smiles. “I wrote you some.”  
  
Oh. Oh—Tatsuya leans in a little, feels Shuu’s pulse quickening in his thumb.  
  
“Can I read it?”  
  
“Um,” Shuu says. “It’s a lot. And not quite finished, but—yeah, yeah you can.”  
  
There’s a pile of notebooks at the end of the desk; he pulls off the top one and hands it over; Tatsuya opens, not sure what he expects to see. The first page is inscribed with Shuu’s neat kanji, a few that Tatsuya hadn’t known the last time they’d seen each other but that he does now, still sunk into his mind from two years- worth of teachers shaking their heads at how hopeless he is for a fluent speaker, words about Tatsuya’s hands, the way Shuu feels when they touch him, and—Tatsuya flips through the notebook. It’s more of the same, some in English that comes off the page in patterns, more about the rhythm of the syllables and the way the words sound in Tatsuya’s head, alliteration and consonants repeated in the middle of the words, but still the same. Deep, intimate, a way that Tatsuya would say he’s not ready for but isn’t this the same as he’s been feeling about Shuu all along? The way he’d told himself not to, gut twisting on the bed with his laptop closed, fingers drumming on the top wishing he could be touching Shuu instead? Maybe the depths of Shuu’s feelings should be hitting him like a tidal wave, but all Tatsuya can think about is the thudding in his own heart, the way his body is telling him to be frightened off but is mind is telling him, hey, this feels pretty fucking good.   
  
“This is so beautiful, Shuu,” Tatsuya whispers.  
  
Shuu reaches for his hand; Tatsuya gives it first, and Shuu’s smile, brilliant and unsubdued, is better than poetry could describe.


	18. murahimu, who hurt you

It would be easy to hate the person who made Tatsuya like this, except that’s a simplistic explanation made by adults who have forgotten everything. “Who told you that? Who made you like this?” Like it doesn’t always come down to you, in the end. Like it doesn’t come down to Tatsuya, the driver exhausting his fuel reserves, burning out to get to two hundred kilometers an hour, the ocean foam clinging to the sands of the beach, washed up on the shoreline. The struggle that he knows he cant win but he’s afraid to let go because isn’t it worse to fall further behind than to kill yourself trying?  
  
It’s a mentality that Atsushi gets for a second before it disappeared, fish at a festival diving through his fingers before he can lift them from the water. It would be easy to hate Tatsuya for making himself do this, but Tatsuya hates himself so much (for making himself like this, for not being enough, for chasing that dream and falling behind) that it;s impossible. It’s not that Atsushi pities him; he certainly doesn’t envy that position but—why? Why does he keep going when he’ll never win? Is there some sort of security in this position that he hates but is at least familiar, the way of things? That’s not quite it, either, and Atsushi’s not going to exhaust himself trying to figure it out (not when it exhausts him just to watch Tatsuya wearing himself to the bone).   
  
And it’s easier to touch him, to kiss him, to do it over and over again and make him accept that yes, he is difficult and self-centered and consumed by this single-minded pursuit, but that doesn’t make him unlovable. It doesn’t make him so easily crushed as sea foam, swallowed by the waves or stomped under flesh, disintegrating into the air. He’ll just let himself get spit back out, painted in a paler shade of green, the color on a crayon.   
  
It would be easy to hate Tatsuya, but sometimes he makes it so hard, and maybe it’s hard for himself, a waste of energy but something he’s still determined to do out of some kind of stubbornness, the way he’s determined to make everyone else like the flat sticker facade he puts on, something far less likable than the ugly things that weigh him down, the things he tries to hide. Is it much of a consolation prize to win at that?


	19. murahimu, warped mirror

Looking at Atsushi is like looking through a cracked mirror, warped. A supersize version of himself, lacking a little inhibition (but then sometimes Tatsuya does what he wants; he comes from the opposite side but it’s the same one in the reflection, isn’t it). And Tatsuya’s on the cracked side; he’s the one without, the flaws and blemishes apparent if not totally visible across his skin. Atsushi hates losing, just like him, only he’s not as simple about it. He acts simple and Tatsuya eacts complicated, but with Tatsuya it just comes down to having to win, having to be the best, having this kind of measuring stick to hold himself against.   
  
Atsushi hates to lose, but to him it doesn’t matter as much who’s powering the ship; he’ll depend on others and—Tatsuya wants to be the dependable one, the one the others give over their burdens to even though he’s got a ridiculously embarrassing level of difficulty carrying his own, but he needs to be that guy, the one they look to, the one they rely on, the one they think of as the top choice. Atsushi could be that; he is that without trying as much as he could and it’s maddening—Tatsuya doesn’t want Atsushi to beat him (not that Atsushi even considers him competition) but he wants Atsushi to try, and here’s Atsushi making shots and effortless blocks and rebounds and putting in half the effort and, fuck.  
  
Tatsuya’s not supposed to like that. He’s supposed to hate and resent and he does, except he doesn’t; he wants it—he wants it for himself but it’s not so much as stealing from Atsushi; it’s that Atsushi’s so damn good even when he doesn’t want to be that Tatsuya’s body betrays him, finds itself admiring him. That height, that wingspan, those muscles (how many hours in the gym and Tatsuya can only get so far?). The curve of a smirk that breaks his placid face or the vague annoyed anger that settles over it (another warp in the glass, a bad reflection). It all attracts Tatsuya like iron filings to a magnet, arranged because physics says so, not because he has any say in the matter at all. As usual, things aren’t how he wants them to be. Some might say he’s unlucky, that he’s been dealt a bad hand by fate. This is too much to just be that; some part of Tatsuya’s probably asking for a trap like this, but that doesn’t mean he has to feel any better about it.


	20. murahimu, all this armor

Himuro is a little bit puzzling, in a lot of ways aggravating. His contradictions, the way he acts like Murasakibara’s minder, reining him in even though he’s always like a cloud about to burst with rain and lightning himself. Kind of a hypocrite, but Murasakibara’s known people worse than that. At least he’s a little bit less irritating about it than Kuroko is; at least he doesn’t completely misjudge Murasakibara and pretend they’re friends anyway. Besides, Himuro likes to see the patterns of destruction he makes; he likes to see Murasakibara crush their opponents.   
  
Maybe because that's not what he wants for himself; it doesn’t fit in with the list of close to impossible miracle qualities that make up the idealized pedestal that Himuro claws at, sinks his teeth into the base and won’t let himself be dragged away. He can watch Murasakibara and enjoy it because for once, even though Himuro wants everything, everything, everything when it comes to basketball, this is something he doesn’t. Not in this exact way, and he can reap the benefits of Murasakibara’s destruction. Murasakibara's not interested in doing anyone else’s dirty work for them, but that’s not quite what this is. Himuro’s out there fighting a half-useless fight, but he’s also out there scoring points and taking care of the bulk of the offense. Maybe he’s only that capable because their opponents are stupid weak, because Murasakibara’s got a throttle on the defense (and, well, Liu and Okamura pull their weight even if Murasakibara’s carrying it). But it lets Murasakibara get away with putting in less effort, so really trying to quantify this is talking in circles. This is the kind of question he'd learned not to ask, why the hell Himuro’s so good only because he’s trying so hard to be great when it’s obvious he can’t, the kind of question that could discourage him and give more work to Murasakibara—but it would save Himuro some effort in the long run, so.   
  
So what if Murasakibara cares a little too much? It’s obvious that Himuro does, too, the way he averts his gaze because there’s something in his eye Murasakibara might see, the way he tries to distract with a touch, with a kiss, a phrase deflecting (but Murasakibara’s an expert on defense; he knows it when he sees it). For now, that’s not worth pursuing, a hill in a thunderstorm it would be unwise to approach when he’s wearing all this armor.


	21. murahimu, hanahaki

Just because you know doesn’t make it any easier. Just because he knows you know doesn’t make it any easier, either, because they still don’t do anything about it. It makes it a little easier when you don’t wake up every day choking on flowers, when your throat is clearer and you’re breathing hard, running suicides across the gym at the end of practice, and he’s broken half as much sweat on twice as much body as you.   
  
He knows; you know. It doesn’t mean you’re together. It doesn’t make the flowers stop altogether.  
  
There are so many reasons why you can’t, starting with the way you can’t make yourself do this, that this could be a mistake, that you don’t know how, that you’re not used to having what you want. That it’s better to let it pass you by than to make a leap for it, that you don’t know how to not fuck it up. That by doing nothing, you can’t fuck up what’s not there.  
  
It doesn’t help that Atsushi seems content to make his body’s reaction stop, that the smaller paler flowers, less vivid in their emotion, have subsided, that he can breathe easy. Sometimes he looks at you, still, with lust and want and interest; you look back but neither of you moves toward it, because perhaps you are not the kind of people who make this work.  
  
But it’s still lingering in you, wanting someone you can’t have, wanting someone who wants you and still—nothing, waking up in the middle of the night in pain, the flowers sticking to your throat, sharp petals and sharper thorns scraping the insides of your cheeks, filling your mouth until you can’t breathe and you're choking on the way they clog you, opaque like a thick cloth gag. Like you’re gagging on the feelings you never asked for, the feelings you can’t control, the way he wants you but not enough, the way he says things and doesn’t follow him up, the way you're way too much of a fucking coward to even give it a try. As if you need another physical limitation, but you take it anyway, because you’re a glutton for punishment. The more you swallow, the more flowers burst forth, the larger and brighter and sharper they become.  
  
They spill down your front, and maybe, you think, one day they’ll swallow you up.


	22. murahimu, how to dream

Tatsuya’s forgotten how to dream, but it’s okay. It’s better for them not to be quite so symbiotic; it’s better for Atsushi to go elsewhere for his food. It would have happened sometime, the way it had started to feel when they were together at first, the feeling of being just a little unsatisfied. Like he was rubbing off on Tatsuya, or like he’d been chewing Tatsuya down to the source, a watermelon past the white and green to the peel like a fingernail. Not quickly enough for Tatsuya’s mind to grow back, because despite the bright and vivid landscapes of his dreams, the victories he’d chased and chased, he hadn’t been strong enough to keep them up every night.   
  
Few people are, but all the others Atsushi’s consumed have been; there’s a line between unsatisfactory and resilient and somehow Tatsuya’s managed to straddle it. Perhaps the other morsels Atsushi’s come across have been depleted, but that seems hardly right or logical. Tatsuya’s just the wrong kind of rare, or maybe the right kind for Atsushi, the kind he can impart feelings, glimpses of what he gets, the kind for whom he wants to do that. Not so that one day new sprouts of imagination will spring from long-dead foliage, an accident of evolution, but because he’s okay with him and Tatsuya being like this. He’s okay with being the one who gives, every so often, with Tatsuya receiving. With Tatsuya realizing that he’s more than the tangible things he provides, the vivid dreams he’d once had—it had brought them together in the first place, but it hardly seems necessary now, the scar around the graft that binds the two of them together.   
  
Atsushi travels dreamscapes alone now, gorging himself on vivid colors, strong feelings, wants and desires and strength of will until it sticks in his throat sour and rusty like iron, like blood. He feeds it back to Tatsuya, like a bird waiting in the nest with his wings clipped back, until the sheer force of it knocks him back, leaves him breathless like really good sex.   
  
“Is that how mine used to be?”  
  
“Sort of. Better,” says Atsushi, a kiss in between words, the truth even if it’s not what Tatsuya wants to hear.   
  
He can still feel emotions around him when the person next to him is halfway to sleep, the grief washing like the steadiness of the ocean around Tatsuya, the way Atsushi wants to tell him hey, stop taking it so seriously; chill. He pulls Tatsuya closer instead, resting the weight of his arm on Tatsuya’s stomach, kissing him again, though it doesn't drag him back toward waking.


	23. aokise, tabloid fodder

KISE DENIES LOVE AFFAIR WITH RIKO!  
CHILDHOOD ROMANCE REKINDLED!  
KISE WON’T SAY HE’S IN LOVE  
OLD FRIENDS AND LOVERS!  
KISE-AIDA POWER COUPLE?   
FROM THE SCHOOLYARD TO THE BIG STAGE  
  
“Stop it, Dai-chan,” says Satsuki, forcibly closing his laptop before he can look at any more headlines or click on any more articles to read. “You know it’s just bullshit.”  
  
Daiki rubs his forehead and exhales in a hiss, almost like one of those breathing exercises (speaking of bullshit) his trainers always tell him to do. So what if it is? Ryouta had stammered something out to the press; he and Riko were never even that close; Ryouta never talks to the paparazzi so if he had in regards to this there must be something there. Not that Daiki can blame Ryouta for that, for wanting someone like Riko, someone he can be with in the open, but who also has the drive and passion and talent that Ryouta says he likes the most about Daiki.   
  
“It was bound to happen,” Daiki says.  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Satsuki. “Call him.”  
  
“I still got pride,” says Daiki, even though he kind of doesn’t, even though his fingers are itching to scrape across the front of his phone in the unlock sequence, dial Ryouta’s number without looking, practically beg for reassurance.  
  
Satsuki sighs. “You’re lucky I love you two and I’m not going to let your stupidity get in the way. Again.”  
  
(It would be awfully hard for Satsuki to stop everything that’s been in the way so far, but Daiki appreciates the sentiment anyway; he grunts a sort of thanks as she leaves the room, and closes Firefox when he reopens his laptop.)  
  
Ryouta calls that afternoon, sounding weary and kind of miserable, and the worst part of Daiki feels a little bit vindicated that he’s not the only one who's upset. The better parts of him win out; they hate that shit and soon they’re both apologizing except not for the bigger things, that they’re too insecure to do this as it is, that they don’t want to come out but aren’t sure of each other in this darkness. That’s not going to change anytime soon, in any form, but Daiki doesn’t want to lose Ryouta. Even if it’s like this, stumbling over each other and over this, it’s better than not having each other, better than not loving each other at all.


	24. aokise, greedy

Ryouta wants more, and maybe that’s just being a little bit greedy. Or a lot greedy, but it’s not like he ever really isn’t that way. But that’s why he’s always reminding himself, reminding both of them, that they shouldn’t take it too far. That Daiki can love him all he wants but that doesn't mean they should stop being careful.  
  
“Someone could see,” he says, pretending not to see the pain flashing raw across Daiki’s eyes, or perhaps raw’s not the right word because it’s like a searing brand that cooks his flesh.   
  
Because Ryouta wants more; Ryouta wants everything; he wants to show Daiki off and get everyone to admit that yes he’s wonderful and amazing and the best damn basketball player in the world and look at how he plays, look at the kindness in his eyes that he hides behind a dumb jerk facade, the kindness that’s not weakness but is real, a strength, a way Ryouta isn’t himself. (He wants to keep Daiki to himself, though, too; he could defend him from anyone, no questions ask, but he doesn’t want to feel the jealousy making his blood run solid and congealed, doesn’t want to deal with the fallout and the negative attention—but that doesn’t mean he loves Daiki any less.) And he tells Daiki, how wonderful he his, how goddamn much he loves him, because he’s protected by the way Daiki only believes him halfway.   
  
And the way Daiki kisses him, like he’s drowning in Ryouta’s deluge of words, like he’s drowning in the oceans of Ryouta, like he’s clinging to Ryouta until he becomes tangible, like he’s afraid if he lets go Ryouta will go away. It’s power, but it’s the same power Daiki has over Ryouta; he just can’t see it in his hands, and that’s all for the better to keep it like this. Because Ryouta wants more, but he’s not sure what he’d do if he had it; it’s easy to say you want something when you’re not going to get it anyway, harder when it falls in your hands and you know you’ve made your own bed.  
  
But wherever it goes, he’ll lie in it with Daiki; for now they’re intertwined, stuck together with feelings that are stronger and messier than glue; for now it’s easier to just kiss him hard and desperate the way he wants, to go without explaining himself a little bit longer.


	25. aokise, sea shanty

It comes in the rhythm of a sea shanty, the love me love me in Ryouta’s body, calling out to him. At first Daiki thinks very little of it, Ryouta curling around him after sex and then flopping over just as quickly, as if he doesn’t know what to do when it’s obvious he’s the one with more experience and more of an idea of how to do things. It’s the way Ryouta has always begged for attention and love and care and always gotten it, been the light so blinding every insect flocks to it, the only light that illuminates for better or for worse. He is beautiful and he is the one who is adored and to whom everything is given. Why should this be any different than basketball, than the way he walks down the street and demands the attention of passers-by?  
  
So Daiki gives him the attention, the love and care that Ryouta wants until he realizes that that’s not what Ryouta wants, that’s not what he means. He’s not doing this for fun, just to ignore the way they’d never make it work as an honest thing, making each other toast in the morning when they’re both too cheap to buy a toaster and they both burn it every time anyway. That’s what Ryouta wants; Ryouta wants everything, like some kind of being who can never be sated, like something that will sink its teeth in and bite through the bone if you give him the chance.   
  
It’s hard to say, making vague gestures toward the subject, during sex of all times—but Ryouta forgives him in the moment, sort of. And he rolls of quick, without the lapse this time, when they’re done, cleaning the both of them off methodically, as if he’s not needy the way he most definitely is. Like he’s trying to hide something in plain sight. That’s ballsy, but, well, Ryouta’s nothing if not that, Daiki supposes. (His words, about wanting only what’s here, that he could go somewhere else if he wanted what Daiki didn’t, what Daiki couldn’t give—are they both settling for less with each other, even though they want more, even though each other is the peak of that? It’s a little bit of a paradox, but it makes more sense than any of the rest of this shit.) And Daiki lets him, rolling over close enough to feel the heat of Ryouta’s body as he dozes off but not close enough to touch.


	26. aokise, merfolk au

Aomine remembers, vividly, like a bizarre kind of dream, the tail shining in the sun, the scales like a mermaid’s, and at the time he thinks that damn, he should have made the mermaid stay so he could feel up her boobs. He remembers the feeling of a head on his chest, of hands clutching his, large and warm, the hands that match to the beautiful boy who appears out of nowhere and has odd ideas, an odder understanding of the world around him.  
  
The pieces fit like a fairytale, matching up so square they can’t be real, and Aomine's not going to ask if Kise’s the same one who’d save him; he sense Kise would rather not stay and that he’d probably dodge the question if Aomine did ask. And the memory that Aomine’s been pining over, the memory that’s a shade of nothing that he’s been loving—well, he loves it as much as Kise loves him, which is to say as much as you can love what or who you barely know.   
  
Kise stays past the third day, and maybe Aomine’s wrong, but maybe he’s just not going to say anything about that. Maybe he’ll let the mermaid memory or dream or fantasy or delusion or whatever the hell it was drown, push it back underwater. Because even if that had been Kise, this is his Kise, the bright and vivacious guy who pulls him along, the hands that match up with his better than a memory can, the lightness in his step that’s got nothing to do with a knife through his soles even though the bottoms of his feet are suspiciously soft like the way a baby’s are, like those of someone who hasn’t spent an awful lot of time on land.   
  
His Kise is the one who lays down his heart over again for Aomine, who offers himself, as he is in all his radiance, the quick way he learns and the quicker pace of his wit, barbed and biting like a barracuda or piranha, coming from somewhere deep and a little bit dark. The way he looks at Aomine in the low light, his eyes still glowing like a cat’s, like twin bulbs of two angler fishes, like stars or the digits on the alarm clock, like things that are impossible to describe they’re so beautiful even when Aomine lets them run through his mind over and over. But he’s got Kise with them; he doesn’t need a memory.


	27. takamido, categorize

After a while, Takao stops trying to categorize. It only makes his forehead wrinkle and makes his little sister parrot his mother that his face will stick like that and, after all, it’s simple when he stops to really think about it and not let anything else get in the way, like how things ought to be or how things have been. Because regardless of how they’d gotten here, Takao likes Midorima. An awful lot, and not just as a basketball player or teammate or friend.   
  
It’s hard to judge Midorima’s own feelings; he’s changed so much, softened so much since they’d first met, like butter taken from the freezer and left in its dish to spread on toast in the morning. It’s hard to say whether Midorima reciprocates, or knows he does, even with vision like Takao’s (it’s hard to see feelings, even with someone as obvious as Midorima, when they pertain to him).  
  
That’s why he goes ahead and takes the plunge, because he’s no coward. After he kisses Midorima, sinks back onto his heels, Midorima’s wearing the most beautiful awestruck flushed look Takao’s ever seen, and he knows he’d made the right choice.  
  
*  
  
After a while, Midorima stops trying to categorize. Not everything, just Takao, because he won’t fit neatly into the boxes everyone else does (even Miyaji, who protests; he is squarely in the annoying teammate category regardless of what he says). He’s giving it too much time when he could be studying, slowing his tempo while at piano lessons and he deserves the upbraiding from his teacher; he’s better than this. He can't even blame Takao, because it’s his own fault he’s getting worse. It’s not Takao; it’s the way Midorima feels.  
  
It’s hard to judge Takao’s own feelings; he’s a little bit enigmatic still, the soft barbs of his teasing, the complaints that are more routine than anything else when he carts Midorima around on the rickshaw. He is so many things to so many people; he gives Midorima extra attention but that’s because Midorima’s the ace and Takao’s the support. And yes, they’re friends, but is that more of something they’ve fallen into than something Takao wants?   
  
Midorima gets his answer when Takao reaches up to his shoulder and stands on his toes, touching his mouth to Midorima’s. A kiss, short but conveying all the meaning in the universe, or at least all Midorima needs.


	28. nijihimu, some kind of hitman au

They go through the act every time, but every time Tatsuya’s glad of it. He puts on his best shoes, laces them up right first and then left, ties them the opposite way. He picks his weapon, a crowbar this time, and goes to talk to Shuu in the corner office. It’s mostly an excuse for them to posture and look at each other, for Shuu to get what Tatsuya wants and get ready, undo the top button on his shirt because he knows what’s coming later and it’s hot out today (it’s always hot, but now it’s stifling, the mood that makes Tatsuya itch for the kill, like desire’s biting him, a mosquito that keeps nipping and leaving raised welts but he can’t seem to slap it away).   
  
"Are you going to come and play as my minder?" Tatsuya asks.  
  
Shuu’s looking at him like he’s thirsty, like he’s starting to feel the heat a little bit, watching Tatsuya’s rolled-up sleeves, but he pulls out his gloves from his desk drawer and sets down his notebook.  
  
“Yeah, I’ll come along.”  
  
The job is quicker than Tatsuya would like, short and blunt and too much blood when he bludgeons their heads, but Shuu knows how to clean and hide, how to get everything out and set it right, to give him time to calm down and for his hands to stop shaking, to start to feel drained from the exertion.  
  
“Hey,” Shuu says, kissing him softly.   
  
He’s still wearing his gloves, leather soft against his cheeks, even the groove of the seam of each fingertip. Tatsuya wants to lean on him, but he brings his hands around to rest on the small of Shuu’s back.   
  
“Good work today,” Tatsuya says between kisses.  
  
He knows what Shuu wants, and he’s not so tired as not to give it to him, as not to want it too, the excess energy rearing its head inside of him.He deepens the kiss, pulls Shuu closer, reaches down to grope his ass. He knows the next words out of Shuu’s mouth are going to be not here, not in a fucking warehouse with the bodies however many feet away and, okay, yeah. But he’s got to let Shuu play at being the voice of reason, the minder; he’ll play as the reckless one (and, well, sometimes it’s not playing for him, but that’s about as much as Shuu’s seriously reckless, too, so).


	29. nijihimu, accidental voice recorder

“Hey, wait,” and, oh, shit, no fucking way in hell.   
  
Shuuzou turns; there's no mistaking that voice, Tatsuya’s voice, that had come from the beautiful stranger. What are the odds? That Tatsuya, Tatsuya who hates himself so unrelentingly, is this so seemingly confident, so obviously gorgeous person (then again Tatsuya had never said anything about his physical appearance, never about his style or his posture, about his strength and that stunning voice and his inability to hold relationships, or at least that’s what Shuuzou thinks he'd been talking about, it had been so vague and indecipherable at certain points even as Shuuzou had pored over it).  
  
“Shit," says Shuuzou. “I have your voice recorder.”  
  
*  
  
Tatsuya never acknowledges that Shuuzou must have listened to it, what Shuuzou must have heard, especially to have recognized his voice that quickly. He doesn’t talk about it, any of it; he doesn’t show it on his face. It’s easy to find the cracks in his confidence if you know where to look, and sometimes Shuuzou feels as if he must have cheated. As if someone had handed him the source code to a game before compiling it, or a complete cheat guide from the developers, except Tatsuya’s not a game at all.  
  
And he’s volatile anyway, rocking when his insecurities get hit, pushing Shuuzou away or pulling away himself, as if Shuuzou can’t see, as if he doesn’t know. There’s a lot he doesn’t, the root causes and the particulars, what any of it has to do with the way Tatsuya stares down an entire basketball court, risks those brilliant hands in a fist fight, the ring around his neck that’s maybe the root of everything, a dream catcher that’s taken ahold of Tatsuya’s ambitions and spat them back out like dark monsters with eyes that glow in the dark and hypnotize.   
  
His voice is still beautiful, whispering the nickname that only he uses on Shuuzou, the extra familiarity that belies the distance he puts between them, the shape of his lips on that one syllable, drawn out when Shuuzou bites into his shoulder, possessive—that voice, that spirit, this body, Tatsuya will never be his completely. He’s too fierce, independent, spinning through the loopholes like a dragon, long body and rough scales, until he twists away in the wind, leaving behind only a ghost of words, reverberating in Shuuzou’s mind long after the echoes should have died.


	30. nijihimu, golf umbrella

It’s easier with one umbrella. That’s what Shuuzou’s mother says when she passes him the large green golf umbrella and he unfolds it; there’s definitely room under it for him and Tatsuya both, except. His mom knows exactly the connotations of that, you and the object of your affections huddled under the same shield, even when the rain is not quite so constant.   
  
“Just in case,” she says.  
  
Shuuzou can’t wait to use it; he wonders if Tatsuya knows the connotation, if he’d ever learned it or heard it used. He says nothing about it; there’s no quirk in his expression, no small tilt in his body, the kind of thing Shuuzou’s just beginning to learn how to read in him, the way he so slightly tips his hand. He doesn’t seem to get it, and Shuuzou wonders if he’s a little disappointed, if this is just another clumsy and wishful attempt to flirt with Tatsuya on his part. (Does he need to wonder if he knows it’s true?)  
  
Still, they’re physically closer under the same umbrella, sharing its weight and passing it from one of them to the other, under their own rainclouds, bumping up against each other above them, the familiar patter of the drops on the fabric above. People say the rain is romantic, but that’s when they don’t have to deal with it incessantly pouring down on them; Shuuzou could say something here but he swallows his tongue; he’s too nervous to take this in that direction when there’s nowhere for either of them to go, just one umbrella. He doesn’t want to make Tatsuya feel trapped.  
  
His fingers brush against Tatsuya’s, holding the umbrella up between them; Tatsuya moves, twitches really, just for a second. A little bit off guard, gone before Shuuzou can get a real look, but the knowledge that this had affected him. Shuuzou doesn’t bring up the social connotation, under the umbrella of love; Tatsuya can probably gather that from the context anyway. After all, he’s the one who kisses Shuuzou first, leaning back against the fence in his own front yard and pulling Shuuzou in, causing Shuuzou to nearly drop the umbrella and wish that he coul, just so he could hold onto Tatsuya with both hands for once.  
  
“I know,” says Tatsuya.  
  
Fuck it, this is worth getting wet a thousand times over; Shuuzou drops the umbrella and lets it rain on them, romantic or no, both of his hands cupping Tatsuya’s cheeks, the water pouring and drenching them until they’re nearly freezing, relying on the warmth of each other’s skin.


	31. kagahimu, afraid

Tatsuya kisses like he’s afraid. Like beyond the way he pushes, the way he leans in and loses himself to it, there’s something he dreads, the water flooded away from the beach before the tsunami sirens start to sound, like a firework’s about to explode on his face. Like there’s something he knows he’s going to find, the jump scare in the horror movie that’s bound to show up at one point that’s going to make you twitch or scream no matter how much anticipation had built up within you.   
  
It’s like the way Tatsuya looks on the court, angry and resigned sometimes, flashes of things he’s gotten so good at hiding but when Taiga knows what to look for without even trying he can still see it, written in invisible ink where he’s got the right kind of blacklight to see it (lemon juice on a letter, a secret message Tatsuya had found out how to send in some book or other, held up to the light). Taiga wants to ask what it is, but he’s afraid, too. He’s afraid of a gathering storm, of what might happen, the way Tatsuya had gotten more than a little angry with his own body when Taiga had matched his height, the things he can’t control that seem to have something and yet nothing to do with him. The more he thinks about it, the more it slips from his grasp; he wants to ask Alex about it but it’s the kind of thing she’ll give him a cryptic answer about, and it’s about him and Tatsuya, too (maybe it’s about the rings around their neck, how they still say it means brothers when Tatsuya kisses him like that, in a way that steals his breath and a little more of his heart).   
  
But Taiga’s not afraid of that, because it’s always been Tatsuya, inevitable; it’s always been spiraling toward this. It had to have been, the first time they’d seen each other, the way Taiga always sees him with fresh eyes, his kind spirit and soft hands, that gorgeous shot he’ll watch a hundred more times that Tatsuya still sees only flaws in, says it’s not quite ready yet even though Taiga can’t block it no matter how he tries.   
  
Tatsuya is brilliant, burning bright like a firework, but maybe the air around him is so bright with his own light he can’t see where it’s coming from, cant tell it’s all inside of him. But Taiga’s going to keep trying to make him see, to make him stop frowning when he looks down so they can soar into the sky together.


	32. kagahimu, supposed to be a surprise

Taiga meets him at the airport, even though Tatsuya hasn’t told him about his flight, told him about any of this—it was supposed to be a surprise, and even though knowing Alex she’d probably told Taiga this morning that by the way, Tatsuya’s coming home for the weekend, and Tatsuya can’t even be mad at her because he should have fucking known and kind of did anyway, and he can’t be mad at all the moment he steps into Taiga’s arms, smells the ocean salt and traffic fumes and smell of new sneakers, the store he works in now (he’s already sent Tatsuya a pair he could afford without his employee discount that Tatsuya can’t get in Akita, the ones Tatsuya’s wearing, soles giving just the right amount under his toes as he stands on them to reach Taiga better because he’s fucking gotten taller again).   
  
They don’t even say each other’s names; Tatsuya closes his eyes and just breathes in, feels Taiga’s warmth radiating around him; he’s home, home, home, and then it all comes crashing down on him. The pettiness of their last argument, how tall and strong Taiga’s gotten playing with that team, the limitations seeping back into Tatsuya’s limbs, the way he always manages to push Taiga away and say the wrong things, the way those only come from feeling the wrong this.   
  
But then Taiga’s pulling back and Tatsuya’s looking into his eyes, soft and warm like the air here at the end of the winter.  
  
“I’m so glad you’re home.”  
  
“Me, too,” Tatsuya says quietly.  
  
He’d slept on the flight but he nods off halfway in Taiga’s car; they take the long way and stop for fast food and Tatsuya’s got a half-eaten double cheeseburger in his hand, the salt and grease and processed cheese tasting like the nectar of the gods. Here is home, but only when he’s with Taiga; the emptiness of that last year when he’d been alone—the frustration that it’s him having to chase Taiga across the ocean the other way, too, but knowing when he gets back for real this time they can be together. Maybe like that, maybe someday, maybe that’s a foolish dream, but here, as the sun's coming up and he realizes Taiga’s driving them down to the beach even though he’s got to have morning practice or something, it seems possible, reachable. Him and Taiga, like that, Taiga pulling down the sun visor on the driver’s side and grabbing his sunglasses, pulling out some more cheese fries from the bag.


	33. kagahimu, rockstar au

One of the best, that stings like a backhanded compliment even though it’s true, even if that was unintended. One of the best singer-songwriters, like he can’t quite do either well enough to be the best, and he can’t be (that damning with faint praise) versatile. So prolific, with sad songs, but never that he puts out so many good songs, great songs. Because really all he’s doing is dramatizing his own inadequacies, wallowing and bathing in it. That he couldn’t make Taiga stay, that he couldn’t pull himself up to that level, that he was holding Taiga back instead of pulling him up, pulling him forward, that they couldn’t go together on the same level. That no matter how much he practices, no matter how he wears down his fingers again and again, he will never reach the way Taiga’s intuitive guitar playing has that ability to wow a crowd, to silence people, to burn a wave of inspiration inside of them. His are half-formed, warped mirror knockoffs; he’s not the real deal (capital letters on each word, the next big thing, the big thing right now).   
  
He’s so fucking pathetic, still hung up on it, milking his own pathetic emotions for all they’re worth because he’s a one trick pony, a one note writer. He can only do this, and he can’t even be the best at it. He’d fucked up his shot with Taiga; that’s going to stay with him his entire life. The mistake that’s going to haunt him like a ghost, possessing him, forcing the words out onto the paper, again and again. The same regrets and mistakes rephrased, reiterated, the same feelings pulsing like a wave that won’t die, eternally feeding on him until it eats him from the inside out.   
  
He thinks about Taiga’s band, its chart position, the chemistry they supposedly have that drives them. The happiness so clear on Taiga’s face when he plays. There’s no way Tatsuya’s ever going to find that, no way he’s going to match it, no way it’s ever going to feel like the ring around his neck isn’t burning a hole in his chest but no way he can take it off. He can’t let go; it’s more pathetic to just cling to it and no better than the unknown but he still can’t admit it’s really over. So instead of cutting his losses, he’ll lose every day.


	34. kagahimu, easy to love

It’s so easy to love Tatsuya that Taiga couldn’t not even if he tried. Regardless of all the complications that have passed between them, the stupid shit they’ve both done, how much Tatsuya tries to push Taiga away, all he’s really doing is pulling up more and more love from Taiga’s endless reserves of it, energy that’s renewable forever basically, even when entropy takes over the universe and everything is still—this is constant, overwhelming maybe. It’s hard not to overwhelm himself when he thinks about it, and he tries not to bowl over Tatsuya, his twisted self-image and the ideas he’s tattooed on his brain that he doesn’t deserve, he shouldn’t, he’d screwed up his only chance—they’d both fucked up, okay, but but that just proves it. Even if it’s hard to make it work, Taiga’s not afraid to dig in and get his hands dirty.  
  
(He doesn't need to say anything about Tatsuya, the unquenchable thirst and drive, the stubborn spirit that sinks in his teeth, the way he knows Tatsuya loves him, too, without saying it. It’s not something quantifiable; he can’t speak for Tatsuya, but it’s more than enough—like his talent, like his drive, like how he deserves everything, the best love and the best things and everything he wants and has worked so hard for.)  
  
“Please stop making everything so hard for yourself,” Taiga whispers into Tatsuya’s hair.  
  
Tatsuya looks up at him, all of a sudden fragile like his iron’s been overexposed and rusted out, like his grip on Taiga’s about to tremble and fall away. Honest, raw, the way Taiga can’t help being with Tatsuya all the time. He doesn’t try to excuse or explain himself; he just looks, a way Taiga can’t bare to push the happiness onto him even though it’s there for the taking and within his reach, like it might cut Tatsuya open. Because as easy as this is for Taiga, as hard as it is, too (loving is the easy part but there’s so much more than that) Tatsuya’s always going to take the more difficult option as if it’s the true one when it’s handed to him.  
  
And then Tatsuya hugs him closer again, a release, not a vow to do better or even something more nebulous like he’ll try, but worth a hell of a lot (and he doesn’t need better; that’s what always gets Tatsuya into trouble with himself). More, even. Taiga holds him tighter, thinking without saying how much this means, how much he loves and wants and hopes, how if he gives even a little bit of that to Tatsuya it’ll make a difference.


	35. kagahimu, phone call

“You miss him,” Tatsuya says. “Did you tell him?”  
  
He can hear Taiga’s quiet breathing on the phone, thinks of the conversation cascading on in his head, the version of himself that accuses Taiga of not missing him, though, missing Kuroko more. Light and shadow, complements, they play so well together, a perfect match, fate—of course Taiga misses Kuroko; Kuroko’s his other half or something of the sort, the things people say that Tatsuya wonders—are they true? (He thinks of a version of himself who’s even lower, meaner, until that self ceases to be himself at all, saying shit he knows is a lie just to get Taiga to refute it only Taiga doesn’t, because he and Kuroko—)  
  
“Tatsuya?”  
  
“Yes, hello? Sorry.” (The first time they’ve talked in a week and Tatsuya’s not even listening, wrapped up in his shitty fantasies; what kind of friend is he, what kind of brother? What kind of person who even thinks about Taiga in that way?)  
  
“It’s okay. I’m moving closer to the window; can you hear me better?”  
  
“Yeah. Thanks.”  
  
(He can see Taiga, Taiga now in the twin bed that’s too small for him, pushed up against the window like it was when they were kids, when they would gaze out at the sky together and talk about getting stars on the walk of fame, playing against each other every night in the Staples Center, that of course the NBA would rearrange the schedule just for them so that the Clippers and the Lakers would play 82 times a season and then in the finals, too.)  
  
“I mean,” says Taiga. “I do miss him, but—those guys are fine without me. Like, if we’re not playing together…I know most of your friends are connected through basketball, and I know we are, but that’s different, you know?”  
  
Tatsuya hums, assent to show he’s listening, trying not to feel smug or happy; those guys were Taiga’s best friends in Japan, weren’t they?   
  
“We talk about other stuff, too, but…it’s awkward. I feel kind of bad for leaving. Kuroko’s a good guy, and I can’t blame him for being a little mad at me, and I do—I don’t know.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” says Tatsuya.  
  
“It’s okay; it’s not like—” Taiga sighs. “You know I miss you, though? Like, I know you’re planning on coming back home, and I just. We just caught up with each other and now.”  
  
“You don’t have to talk around it,” says Tatsuya. “I really am sorry.”  
  
“I know,” says Taiga. “I’m sorry about that, too, and I feel like it’s my fault this time that I’m—”  
  
“Don’t even start with that,” says Tatsuya. “You’d be stupid not to take this opportunity, okay? I’m not mad at you.”  
  
(He’s mad at himself, for not getting something similar, for not being able to follow Taiga back, for feeling so angry about all of this in the first place, for being so jealous of someone like Kuroko about everything, for making Taiga think for a second he should be sorry about pushing himself forward and taking a leap just because Tatsuya’s not capable and that’s his own goddamn problem.)  
  
“I’m wearing my ring again,” Taiga blurts. “I know we decided we didn’t have to, but—”  
  
“Me, too,” says Tatsuya, suddenly honest in the abrupt face of Taiga’s honestly, always so disarming against his bets defenses, and, well, it’s over the phone and Taiga’s back home an ocean away; the ring’s been on under his school shirt, resting warm and familiar and right all over again since Taiga had left.


	36. kagahimu, someday

“You’ll see him again, someday,” says Alex, the addendum that someday never comes not quite exiting her lips.  
  
It wouldn’t do much good to Tatsuya, even if he’s already thinking it, just as it would do no good to suggest calling or emailing (it would do no good for him to actually try those things; Alex doesn’t know the exact story of what had passed between them but she knows enough to know that it won’t be fixed so easily as the chain around Tatsuya’s neck, not so quickly, not without a lot of time spent face to face). Someday, they’ll reconcile; it’ll be too long for both of them, the ocean full of regret between them, the way two people like them have been stuck together, grown together like intertwined plants that even if you cut off the twisted, tangled stems the roots are still irrevocably stuck in a mass, where it’s impossible to separate one from the other. The period of regrowth is tough; they’re both stubborn and impatient, but if anyone can weather it it’s them (Tatsuya would perhaps say they couldn’t, deny her words and turn away, but he’s hopelessly pessimistic even in the face of tirelessly trying).   
  
“It’s all going to be different,” Tatsuya says, the bitterness spilling out of his voice like coffee made with twice the normal strength.   
  
As if that’s so necessarily bad, but then again to Tatsuya it is, but it’s already different. There’s no way they’d be able to stay with Tatsuya leading the way, Tatsuya pushing himself ahead and pulling Taiga behind him; there’s no way that would have allowed either of them to grow to their full potential. Though maybe being apart is only going to make the way Tatsuya longs for that worse, maybe it will force them both to reevaluate, to see each other as they are, themselves as they are, not as if they’ve failed do do this brother thing properly, but that they couldn’t, that they’re so much more than that.  
  
She says as much, in different words; Tatsuya looks as if he wants to turn away and block it out. That things had ever changed, that if he ignores it hard enough Taiga will come back and be his little brother again, that it will all be undone and they’ll graft those rotten, dead stems back onto their foundations. But he knows it doesn’t work like that—but just because that’s impossible doesn’t mean any reconciliation is, no matter how hard it is for Tatsuya to see.


	37. kagahimu, rivals

“There’s someone you’re competing against, right?” says Liu, leaning against the wall.  
  
“More or less,” says Tatsuya as he towels himself off (that’s not quite true, but he and Liu aren’t friends even if Liu’s got the bluntness to bring this up).  
  
“Your rival? You hate them?”  
  
“I don’t hate them,” says Tatsuya, because that much is true.   
  
It’s more that he hates everything that falls in an outline of the approximate shape of Taiga in Tatsuya’s world, that he hates how Taiga gets everything so easily without realizing, that he can do the things he can with less effort than Tatsuya needs to do them halfway. He doesn’t hate those things about Taiga in and of himself; he can’t. It’s all he’s ever wanted for Taiga, for Taiga to be this good; Taiga deserves it more than anyone in the universe, but—Tatsuya wants them, too. Life’s not fair; he’s known that for an awfully long time. He’d started first; he’d loved basketball first, harder, clung to it. There was a time, a year or so, when it had been just him and the ball and the hoop, alone, the way he is now almost. More so. Something only he had suffered, something that makes it such that if Taiga, who has only ever know basketball with others, as a team, gets it, why shouldn’t Tatsuya? (Maybe this had been the wrong approach, even if it was all Tatsuya had; maybe he’d doomed himself by falling in love with basketball the wrong way because God knows he can’t go about loving anyone or anything the right way.)   
  
He hates himself for resenting Taiga, for lashing out at him; he hates himself for wanting what he knows he can’t have, dwelling on it like this, letting it consume him (pathetic, pathetic); he hates himself for failing to stay ahead as Taiga’s older brother, for taking a role he could not fulfill. For holding Taiga back, for ever making him think he should throw a game, that he shouldn’t try his hardest (even more of a failure than not being a good enough basketball player, or someone who was levelheaded and cool and not consumed by jealousy and misery all the time).   
  
Liu looks at him, a fraction of a second longer, as if he’s deciding something, but then he shrugs, as if he accepts Tatsuya’s words. As if he sees the truth as it is, that it’s Tatsuya’s own failures that he hates. Taiga who he loves (because maybe it would be easier if he did hate someone like Taiga, so impossible to hate).


	38. nigou/kerosuke, fairy tale

Kerosuke’s owner isn’t stupid. He follows his own logic, which involves taking Kerosuke with him sometimes, and seems to generally be consistent. However, he exercises poor judgement in some cases, such as when he leaves Kerosuke tucked in the rickshaw to go off and do some sort of basketball thing (today, Kerosuke gathers, he is considered less lucky; he’s very lucky every day thank you very much Shintarou, way luckier than a packet of tissues).   
  
He is so lucky, in fact, that upon attempting to see shapes in the clouds, becoming extremely bored, and almost wishing for that annoying Takao to come back (at least he talks to Kerosuke sometimes) the rickshaw is rocked, quite literally, by a new visitor. The handsomest dog Kerosuke has ever met. He’s alone; they’re alone, just the two of them, no owners to cramp their style. Kerosuke is quite limited by his plastic structure, but he tries very hard to make a come-hither look, and the dog looks quite interested.  
  
He walks over and sniffs at Kerosuke, and then his nose is cold and wet and on top of Kerosuke’s head and it feels, well, good. He bats at Kerosuke with a paw and then pats him gently; if Kerosuke could turn a color other than green he would blush. The dog barks at him and it’s the most beautiful sound Kerosuke’s ever heard, clear and pure in the air, much more gorgeous than the rattling on the piano Kerosuke's owner makes, or Takao’s terrible off key singing. The dog pushes Kerosuke along the bottom of the rickshaw, patting him again and then picking him up, so softly in his mouth. His teeth are sharp but they do not tear into Kerosuke; his tongue is soft against Kerosuke’s stomach (a little bit forward for the first date, but Kerosuke supposes the dog must be as attracted to Kerosuke as Kerosuke is to him; that’s always a good sign).   
  
And then, of course, Kerosuke’s owner has to come back and exercise even poorer judgement, freaking out at the poor dog and threatening to shoot it like a basketball. Their love is doomed to be forbidden; perhaps they will look back upon this day as something that would never be able to last, something far sweeter than they’ll be able to recapture. Or perhaps this is just something to be vanquished, and one day the handsome dog will pick Kerosuke up and carry him off to safety, wrap its soft body around Kerosuke and fall asleep, far away from strife.


	39. akahimu, rakuzan!tatsuya

The mystery will reveal itself. Akashi is content with that much, the things that Himuro wishes not to talk about but the things that he will see. He doesn’t make to hide them; they’re in plain sight, just somewhere around the bend. A wise decision, a person more shortsighted than Akashi might say. It is unwise to form attachments like that, though, attachments that still claw at Himuro no matter how late he practices.  
  
Akashi has yet to get rid of the necklace; perhaps it is he who is being the foolish one here, playing with it, using it as a last resort of keeping Himuro in line. If he needs it. The tarnished, cheap chain, the ring that looks as if it had come from a vending machine, the places on the chain that look new. Repaired. Interesting. He always keeps it tucked away when Himuro visits, though, when Himuro seems eager to falsely prove his allegiances. The fact that he is before Akashi has shown any doubts is proof enough, but Akashi’s not going to call him on that for now. He's a good lay; his mouth is lovely when it’s full of something besides words; he’s quite pretty as a whole.  
  
And he never stays; he always knows to get out, zipping up his pants and adjusting his hair until he returns to his usual appearance, too messy for a proper member of the student council (but let him flout it, let him think he’s winning this inconsequential battle, distract him with that).   
  
He beats Mibuchi in a one on one, unprecedented but not entirely surprising. He’s been studying Mibuchi’s mastery of his shots, the way he defends; despite Mibuchi’s superior height and slightly better physique Himuro draws from the same reservoir that has floated the chip on his shoulder to the top. Sooner or later, Akashi thinks, he’ll overdraw, but he’s got two years to keep him steady until Akashi’s done with him and it won’t really matter (though Akashi wishes Himuro would save it for the games, not exhaust himself with some attempt to assert his dominance at a position with a teammate he’s already been jostling with).   
  
Though it does earn him the respect of his classmates, and that counts for something, though it’s amusing when Hayama says he’s beginning to get what Akashi sees in a guy like that. Hayama doesn’t get it at all; he’s coming from a different place entirely. And there are still tan lines, fading in the autumn, on Himuro’s neck, what used to be a chain.


	40. aohimu, potential

It’s the potential. Not within either one of them, but within what happens when both of them meet, Aomine’s loose rubber and Himuro’s taut steel. The way they grip each other, the way Aomine’s fallen so hard and fast it’s like he’s crashed through the gym floor and is hurtling through the hollows of the earth, below the foundation, like gravity’s growing stronger and stronger and he can barely scream because he can’t catch his breath so the only thing he can do is hold onto Himuro, dig his nails into that skin, pale in the northern sun but tone even, stark in the low light of the shadowy alcove that Himuro’s dragged him into.   
  
Their kisses are desperate, short, leaving room for more, potential, possibility; they’re like a plant that’s outgrown its pot too quickly, roots spilling over through any crack in the terra cotta at the bottom. Like if they keep going they’ll burst through the side, like they’re going to burn up if they’re contained within this space. Not that Aomine would mind so much burning up if it was with Himuro, his hot head and blazing eye, the sharpness in every movement, the way he analyzes and overanalyzes Aomine’s moves and comes back with counters, pushing even though it shouldn’t be possible for him to do this.   
  
But this has nothing to do with their individual potential and everything to do with the two of them, the way Aomine’s voice drops on the phone and Himuro’s does if not to match it than with the most emotion Aomine’s ever heard him use out loud. (Enough so Aomine’s thoughts run wild with what if they’re about to have phone sex right now, shit, does he want Aomine to call him captain again?) and what that actually means. How much Himuro uses, what he withholds, where this is going and where it stops, if it ever does, the ache in his body and the feeling that he wants Himuro in several different senses of the word. It doesn’t scare him so much, but it might scare Himuro at once, and if this isn’t meant to last, well.  
  
“Next time,” says Himuro, his voice maybe a little softer than he’d intended; Aomine lets the feelings all rush into him because why the fuck not, what the fuck is this for other than feeling all he can, getting what he can out of it?  
  
“Yeah,” says Aomine, squeezing the phone between his cheek and shoulder. “You can count on it.”


	41. aohimu, bruises on your thighs

Aomine leaves him with nothing but bruises, throbbing on his thighs until they fade to green and yellow, the sick colors of organ failure, marks dripping farther and farther down his thighs each time and he has to be careful of the shorts he wears. He has to hide Aomine’s fingerprint on him, and he’s fine with that; it’s something to be ashamed of the way he gets drunk on Aomine’s lazy smile, the way the biting goes from nipping to digging in and hurting, the way Aomine’s always hurt Himuro by being a little too much himself (a better rival for Taiga, a better rival for Atsushi even, and it only helps a little that he’s a terrible kisser, that he’s only had a little bit of practice but like he’d saved most of himself up until now when he’s spending it all unwisely on someone like Himuro).   
  
Okay, Aomine leaves him with voice messages, too, texts about hey i wanna suck you off or im sorry, simple but enough to show that he really means it until the next time they have the same argument, repeated like a CD scratched deeper than Aomine ever scratches Himuro even. But all of this is deeper than that, deeper than Himuro had wanted it to be, the way he’d admired and coveted Aomine’s talent, Aomine’s role, from afar; he’d known getting close to him would have none of that but fucking him would be some kind of trophy even if it was something only he could see, something at the back of his mantel behind the dust and shadow, drowned out by the light Aomine casts, harsh and brilliant. The way he holds Himuro’s hips in prints of his thumbs, the way he sucks the same marks overlapping onto Himuro’s thighs as they fade week to week, giving Himuro the false hope he loves to cling to about maybe Aomine wanting to leave his mark not as a possession or a prize, simply, but to stay with Himuro, even when they’re back to the different facets of their lives, away from each other.   
  
Or maybe he’s just a dick; maybe he knows the whole things and he’s carved the reminder into Himuro’s flesh to say hey, you’re so far from the top it’s laughable; think of that every time you think of me; think of that every time you press your legs closer together on the train and it hurts and you don’t squeeze your eyes shut because you’re in public. Or maybe that’s projecting twice his own pettiness where Aomine doesn’t really deserve it, but either way what does it matter?


	42. akahimu, self harm

Himuro starves himself in the basement, blood running low and cold, body curling up thin like a set of bones picked clean and bleached in the sun, until Akashi tosses a spare cut of meat down there for him. It’s one of the ones just not quite good enough for him, and even in this state Himuro will know that, the rage and envy and bitterness stringing him along until he chews the meat and swallows it down, revives himself because he doesn’t want to die until he’s taken Akashi with him.   
  
A foolish pursuit, but if it keeps him around.  
  
Akashi has to wait longer than usual for him to come up; he looks bad, worse than usual, when he does. His eye is sunken and his hair is matted but he is still beautiful; he hadn’t needed vampirism for that part, but the transience of human beauty has been twisted into this immortality, in a way that’s purely unnatural and to a human might seem terrifying. But Himuro’s never been all that concerned with humanity, except to deny and expunge his own.   
  
“Take a shower,” Akashi says.   
  
Himuro looks like he’s going to fall over right there but he complies, or at least heads in the direction of the bathroom. Akashi wonders how soon it will be before Himuro shoots at him again, how much of his precious silver he’ll waste on a target like Akashi. How he’ll explain his absence to the vampire hunters this time. How he thinks they don’t know what he is; they’re trained in recognizing that kind of thing but then again Himuro’s an expert in denying himself, denying who he is and denying his body its needs. Denying his own feelings; if Akashi’s not the one he wants why does he keep coming back to him, to this? If what he really wants is another, if he knows by now there’s no way he’ll be able to kill Akashi, why is he here? Akashi already knows the answer, of course. Himuro probably knows it, too; he just won’t admit it, but for now that’s all right. Akashi’s having quite a bit of fun with this, and he’s got more than a few hundred years to wait it out. Himuro doesn’t forget how to be a human, the invisible press of time, quite that easily, and Akashi’s had a lot of time to learn how to be patient.


	43. garciraki, meeting on twitter au

Alex opens up her messages, and then closes the box. She clicks to refresh her feed. This is simple; it’s not a weird question; it’s not even that it’s too personal (and what’s too personal when it’s your girlfriend). But it’s still talking about things she’s only vaguely brought up to Masako before (true, that vagueness was while they were more acquaintances or friends), the admission that yeah if she seems distressed it's because her kids (not her kids like that, she’d preemptively explained, even though Masako had known what she’d meant and is now poking fun at her for it) had a bad fight and Tatsuya’s making himself even more scarce, fighting more; Taiga feels even more isolated and now, well.   
  
She'd said she’d keep Masako in the loop, and Masako’s probably asleep right now (no new tweets, now likes of Alex’s retweets and snarky commentary about the international basketball circuit, what a clusterfuck FIBA’s becoming, not that it had been much better when they’d been playing). News about Japanese players in France and China all the way down, then a few more about the Japanese leagues, a few tweets from the rest of their internet circle, kids up late pretending to study for the most part. Alex opens her messages again.  
  
 _Hey, what do you know about Tokyo?_  
  
She hits enter before she can second guess herself again, runs her hand through her hair, leans back against the pillows. And then Masako’s icon pops up at the bottom of the box; she’s typing a response.  
  
 _In what context? I lived there while I was training with the national team, but it’s been a while since I’ve spent extensive time there._  
  
 _Taiga’s moving there._  
  
 _Your Taiga? That’s sudden._  
  
 _Yeah, apparently his dad dropped it on him out of nowhere and he’s not looking forward to it. I’ve heard there’s good shopping there, but that’s not enough to cheer him up right now…trying to get him to look at it as an opportunity._  
  
 _Sue his dad for custody :)  
But in all seriousness, there’s no better place in Japan for streetball. Probably not what he’s used to, though, and I’m sure he’d rather stay on your side of the ocean._  
  
 _I doubt he’d be excited about a move across the country, either, but yeah. Thanks. I can try it from that angle._  
  
 _What about him and Tatsuya?_  
  
 _Trying to get them to make up is….difficult. They’re both so stubborn, and it has to come from Tatsuya…feel like I’m trying to move a fucking mountain. But it’s their fight, and there’s a certain point where it’s all up to them._  
  
 _…you could come in Taiga’s place. Tokyo’s a hell of a lot closer than LA._  
  
Alex closes her eyes, thinking about what it would be like to see Masako in real life, the stuff she doesn’t let herself pine for too much, because they don’t have it and what they do have, opposite ends of a computer screen, is better than she ever could have hoped for. But it would still be nice to hold Masako, to see her as she moves, to call each other from the same time zone.   
  
_I’m sorry, that was kinda low._  
  
 _I do want to come, you know._  
  
 _I know._


	44. aokise, better half

He deserves it all, all the hurt, for taking so goddamn long to go through with this and for dragging out this relationship so long, for digging his feet in against the riptide, against the ocean trenches cracking the plates of the earth apart and widening the distance between himself and Ryouta. A gulf, longer than the horizon, one that will be there physically soon but one that’s already been there.  
  
He deserves having to watch Ryouta's tears, even if Ryouta shouldn’t have to shed them; he deserves every side effect because he’s hurt Ryouta. Stabbed him with a broken bottle, taking the easy way out until he couldn’t anymore, getting in too deep, irresponsibly so. There were a million other things he could have done, not get involved in the first place, get out while things were still casual (okay, that’s unrealistic; things have never been able to stay casual between them in any sense) or at least get out when the water was at their ankles instead of when they were drowning, at the bottom of a torpedoed ship, flooding with water until it sinks.   
  
It’s like the ocean is full of Ryouta’s tears, like some kind of Alice in Wonderland shit, only Daiki’s the evil queen, cutting everything open, screwing up his own Wonderland, all that is bright and beautiful and Ryouta. Maybe that’s a little bit overdramatic (God knows Daiki’s been known to be like that), but this isn’t just a breakup. This is years erased in the sand, eroded away after having been built up so carefully, his entire world crumbling around him because it had been built on a faulty foundation.   
  
Not the way they’d loved each other; that had never been faulty or unsure; that had been everything. But it wasn’t enough; it’s easy to say that’s enough to go on when you’re both stuck in the same place and you’re two parts of the same world but he and Ryouta were never that, were never meant to be that. This wasn’t a relationship of convenience, but it wasn’t something that could survive the splits and rifts and fuse back together like some kind of magic material. It’s more like the kind of animal who can be cut down the middle and become two, separate, missing parts and hurting, but continuing along different paths.  
  
(Ryouta had been the better half, but they’d both known that all along.)


	45. kagahimu, solution

“So,” says Taiga, sitting down across from Tatsuya.  
  
It’s lunch; it’s still Sunday and they’d played basketball all morning (Taiga had kicked Tatsuya’s ass, and Tatsuya had managed not to throw Taiga’s words about not not being good at basketball back into his face and spent extra time attempting moves he used to be able to do in his sleep). Tatsuya’s been thinking about that all morning, even without mentioning it, and for once he’s not going to be a dick and make Taiga spell it out for him.  
  
“I’m sober. Hangover’s gone, I’m still sad; what I said still stands. In vino veritas.”  
  
“Apparently cheap vodka and molly, too,” Taiga mutters, before wincing. “Sorry.”  
  
Tatsuya shrugs; it’s not unfair or untrue. “It’s not like I think sex is going to solve all my problems and suddenly make me competent and confident and happy. But I’d been thinking about it more than in passing since before you asked, and. I don’t want to take advantage; I don’t want you to do this out of obligation.”  
  
“I wouldn’t have sex with you out of obligation,” says Taiga. “Gimme a little credit, okay? I love you and I hate seeing you like this and even when you’re fucking miserable and wallowing it, I’m still attracted to you. I don’t want to take advantage, either, though.”  
  
“You wouldn’t be,” Tatsuya says. “Believe me.”   
  
His voice is softer than he’d intended, but it’s soft enough to catch on Taiga in some way; he reaches over and squeezes Tatsuya’s hand.   
  
“I want you to be happy. I want us to be happy.”  
  
(And there’s the implication, again not unfair,t hat all his misery’s been dragging Taiga, down, and that’s the absolute opposite of what he wants, the double-edged sword of trusting Taiga in spite of himself, with the most of him, of leaning on him a little bit too much. Maybe this is a bad idea, no matter how much he wants it, or how much Taiga does—or thinks he does.)   
  
Taiga’s still holding his hands, looking into his eye. At this angle, they’re both big enough to lean across the table until their lips touch. Tatsuya wants it; he’s still not sure if he should take it. If he’s allowed, and even if he is if it’s the right thing to do.  
  
“Stop overthinking it,” Taiga says, leaning forward. “What do you want, Tatsuya?”  
  
And maybe he’s about to regret it all, but fuck it, this is the first time he’s actually done something since deciding he would, so he leans over across the table and kisses Taiga’s mouth, and it feels every bit as good as he’d imagined and then some.


	46. kagahimu, can't see it

It’s impossible, frustrating, vexing—how fucking wonderful and extraordinary Tatsuya is, that he just can’t see it. He shoots nine of ten from the free throw line and he’s out there the next day shooting frees until his arms are screaming, going through the motions and then adding in the ball, hefting its weight and making himself do more, more, with every hit and every miss. As if it’s not worth doing if he can’t be perfect, that if he’s not perfect he’s slipping and if he is he’d better watch his back and not get complacent. Like he’s already beyond his limits when he’s limitless.   
  
In different directions than Taiga, sure, but if they were just the same it would be boring. It’s like they’re fireworks of different colors, explosions of different sort, like one of them’s the thunder and one’s the lightning. Explaining that to Tatsuya is hard to put into words, even the words of the concepts that had been stuck in his head. And really, he hasn’t gotten to the baseline yet. Tatsuya’s wonderful; Tatsuya’s brilliant, shining like the moon, brighter than the stars and planets in the sky, and getting him to believe that much, even when he acts like he almost wants to, is impossible.  
  
But Taiga’s pretty stubborn; maybe Tatsuya is, too, but that doesn’t mean Taiga’s not going to keep trying.  
  
“You’re wonderful,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Tatsuya’s forehead.  
  
Tatsuya’s lip quivers for just a moment until he bites it back, squeezes shut his eye, like he’s going to cry if Taiga says it more. Like it hurts him to hear, and Taiga pulls him closer, rubbing his back. That someone as strong as Tatsuya can crumble so easily to words of praise, true and so obvious to Taiga, it’s strange but not unnerving. Taiga whispers the words a little softer, so Tatsuya can still hear them, his mouth right next to Tatsuya’s ear, Tatsuya’s fingers twitching against his chest, closing around the fabric of his shirt. His lips part to kiss Taiga’s neck, an acknowledgement if not an acceptance, fingers twisting further.  
  
“Hey, hey,” Taiga whispers.   
  
Tatsuya won’t lift his head, won’t let Taiga see him cry for now, but that’s fine. They’ll get somewhere sometime, and Taiga’s not the most patient but he will be for Tatsuya. Anything for Tatsuya, until after he feels like he deserves it, and he feels like it’s okay.


	47. kagahimu, another one

“Actually,” Taiga says, before he can stop himself, just as Tatsuya’s closing the door. “Maybe I do want another one.”  
  
(It’s incredibly selfish to ask this, just before he’s about to leave, indulge all of this just before he goes home and leaves Tatsuya on another fucking continent, but it’s going to be months before they see each other again, months and Tatsuya might not want, might not be so willing to indulge him.)  
  
“Maybe?" says Tatsuya.  
  
“Definitely,” says Taiga, and he can feel the heat rising to his face, blooming like an oil spill over water, but this is his chance and he’s going to take it; he’s tired of missing everything with Tatsuya, time and chances to set things right or stop them from going wrong.   
  
“Do you?” says Taiga.  
  
“Oh, Taiga,” says Tatsuya, the mask slipping from his face enough that he doesn’t need to say anymore and God, Taiga’s so fucking greedy, but he’s already leaning in, his hand on the side of Tatsuya’s face.   
  
Their lips brush, soft across each other, and then meet again (Taiga’s not sure if this is two separate kisses or a kiss and a half, or two parts of the same, but if he spends too much time thinking about that he’s going to miss the moment). Instead of trying to commit the feeling to memory, he’s just enjoying it this time, the softness of Himuro’s lips, the taste of slight spice, mint and ginger, Taiga thinks. He wants to taste it forever, wants to keep doing this forever. He wants to take Tatsuya with him, stow him away on the plane; he wants to go back with Tatsuya to Akita and barge in on his life; he wants. He wants Tatsuya.   
  
Again, Tatsuya lets their lips linger, and he doesn’t pull back as far this time; he’s slightly leaning into Taiga’s touch. This is the worst fucking timing ever, Taiga thinks; maybe Tatsuya’s going to pull away and say they shouldn’t do this now, that they’ve already done too much. Except he doesn’t.  
  
He doesn’t ask before he takes a kiss of his own, warm and sweet and short, punctuated, his tongue so quick and brief over Taiga’s bottom lip before he breaks away. His cheeks are tinted slightly red now, and he lets Taiga go in for a hug before he turns again.  
  
“Keep in touch, okay?”  
  
*  
  
(They don’t talk about it the next time they see each other; Tatsuya’s home for good, and months after talking around the subject and saying in so many words that they miss each other, they don’t need to say any more. They’re barely in Taiga’s car in the airport parking lot before Taiga kisses Tatsuya, this time with more confidence, with assurance that this is what they need to be doing, this is part of what they’ve been missing and wanting all this time.)


	48. kagahimu, first cut

You only get one first, and the first is the one that leaves the first impression, cut deep and it takes a hell of a lot to change it. Like the first moment Taiga had realized the way he was starting to feel about Tatsuya, the way it had plunged deep into his guts, made him feel squirming and uncomfortable but at the same time like he was about to fly, because Tatsuya had just smiled at him and it had turned his face into mush. And everything else after that, even when he’d started to realize how Tatsuya had felt, when Tatsuya had told hi, well. It’s not quite like that.  
  
It’s like their first kiss, when Tatsuya’s mouth fits against his so perfectly and Taiga doesn’t want it to ever end, when they slowly pull apart and Taiga’s breath all comes out at once, when he looks at Tatsuya to see if it had been just as good for him, if he’d done okay. He thinks about Tatsuya’s lips, so soft on his; he thinks about watching Tatsuya’s eye close and the way his lashes meet, Tatsuya’s body mirroring his own, Tatsuya’s head tilted the opposite way. How they’re smiling in the aftermath, foreheads still close enough to touch. Taiga laughs, quiet, into Tatsuya’s shoulder.  
  
“What?” Tatsuya says, light, quiet so that if there were anyone else in the room (maybe there is; someone could break and enter and Taiga probably wouldn’t notice right now) they wouldn’t be able to hear it.  
  
"I just," Taiga starts, feeling his face heat up and scooting closer to Tatsuya on the couch, pressing his mouth closer to Tatsuya’s neck. "I never thought kissing someone for the first time would feel like that. I kind of want to feel it again.”  
  
Tatsuya laughs, in a way that’s not mocking, more of his way of agreeing, matching Taiga’s own laugh, bright and pleased and fuck, Tatsuya being this freely happy does a hell of a lot to Taiga. As much as the first time, or maybe this is the first time he’s heard Tatsuya like this.   
  
Tatsuya’s still grinning. "Well, you know what? We haven't found out what our second kiss feels like, just yet.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Taiga. “You’re right.”  
  
He leans in and their mouths meet again, warm and just as perfect of a fit, nothing lost and everything gained, the taste already familiar and the movements of their lips against each other matching in a rhythm.


	49. aokuro, lightbulb eating au

It’s the smallest ones that Daiki had fed him first, when they’d accidentally found out about his power, when Daiki had been trying to keep too many alight and one had hit Tetsuya in the mouth and melted under his tongue. Tetsuya’s so used to thinking he’s got no powers that he thinks the novelty might last forever. It doesn’t, but the feeling does, the awe that this is his power, that it goes so well with Daiki’s, like they’re supposed to be a match. He won’t say out loud that it’s fate, but it feels like it.   
  
(Maybe, he thinks sometimes, it’s Daiki who had awakened or transferred this power inside of him, that if they’re ever separated for too long he’ll lose it; it’s why he gnaws on the half-burned bulbs from their wall sconces when Daiki’s away, swallows the LEDs in the spare cabinet, focuses on the feeling of the bulb sliding down his throat, the same as it ever is—except it’s different when Daiki does it, and maybe it’s got nothing to do with powers at all, just the way Daiki’s fingers feel warm and sparking against his lips, the way Daiki’s eyes watch him as if enraptured by Tetsuya, almost paradoxical when it’s Tetsuya who’s taking away the light, making him work to see it.)  
  
Even when Daiki’s away, Tetsu never touches the box by the bed. That’s for the two of them; those are the ones for Daiki to feed him. Halogens, LEDs, compact fluorescents. A few old incandescent bulbs, burned out and phased out, but Daiki can still give them light, make their filaments heat up brightly under the glass.   
  
Tetsuya grabs Daiki’s wrist when it’s close enough, even though his fingers can’t wrap the whole way around. He opens his mouth wider, as wide as he can, to let the bulb slip through the opening. It’s rare for his mouth to feel so full; he licks the top of the bulb, feels the heat of the light and the raised bumps of the manufacturer’s insignia, the wattage detail, as it melts down under his saliva.   
  
“Not fair, Tetsu,” Daiki says, like he’s out of breath, like the way Tetsuya’s looking at him is the same way he looks at Tetsuya, with wonder and adoration and happiness, purer than the greatest distillation of the light that comes from his fingertips, that fills Tetsuya’s mouth and his entire body with warmth.


	50. himumurahimu, crossing universes

Tatsuya doesn’t cross universes all that often, and when he does it’s always an accident. Some people can control that shit; he was born with just enough power to be able to do it but not enough impulse control to stop his body when it wants to and not enough power to channel it when his body doesn’t want to go. He can feel it coming when it’s about to happen, though, get himself somewhere quiet and dark where he won’t be seen disappearing, fading from one dimension to the next.  
  
He is younger in this world, or maybe his body had fudged the time; either way his other self is still lit from within by the kind of fury that makes him clock Tatsuya in the jaw. The kind that packs hurt and anger and fear into the punch (Christ, that’s going to bruise and how’s Tatsuya going to explain it, that he’d been punched out of nowhere by his younger self).  
  
Then his younger self kisses him, and Tatsuya doesn’t quite remember being this mercurial when he was—how old? Eighteen, nineteen? Less, more? He’s interrupted in that thought process (though he could always ask) by this universe’s Atsushi, who is clearly almost the same. Just as hot, and all of a sudden Tatsuya’s jealous of this universe’s version of himself, for being this self-indulgently angry and sad and still getting Atsushi in the end (maybe he’s not as well-adjusted now as he pretends to be).   
  
Of course, this Atsushi knows his Tatsuya, is possessive of him even from Tatsuya himself. It figures, that he’d be excluded by his own goddamn boyfriend in another universe, that even here when he’s Atsushi’s he still isn’t Atsushi’s. That Atsushi kisses and touches his own Tatsuya more, though he’s content with two of them and this is still more than Tatsuya will ever get in his own world, but Tatsuya can barely fucking stand it, wants to leave before he comes (he stays, though; his body’s not ready until he feels about to fall asleep, until his other self is curled up in Atsushi’s arms, something Tatsuya bets he'd gotten used to really quick but somehow can’t bear to feel quite as bitter as he slips back into his own universe, wakes up fastening his pants in the alley alone.  
  
He can’t say he’s not used to it, even if he can’t say it doesn’t hurt.


	51. kagahimu, too close

  
Maybe this is too close, but Tatsuya knows what he’s doing. He’s not going to tease Taiga for no reason, not in this way; it’s not the kind of thing he would tease about. And Taiga wants to sit this close, not to tease Tatsuya but just to get some of that, to work himself up to getting closer to talking about it. Because maybe if Tatsuya’s sitting this close, if Tatsuya’s letting him do that, maybe it means he feels the same (or maybe it means he’s totally unaware and this doesn’t feel like that at all; he’s still thinking about the game they’re playing against each other tomorrow). But then Taiga moves a little closer still and Tatsuya gets to his feet, as if Taiga had sprung the trap, pulled the trigger, snapped something shut, and he knows at this point he’s overthinking it, that it could be anything.  
  
“I should leave," Tatsuya says. “It’s late; we have early practice tomorrow and I don’t want to wake you up.”  
  
Not that Taiga’s not an early riser, and not that Tatsuya meets Taiga’s eyes as he gets on his coat and scarf and boots, and oh. This had to mean that Tatsuya knows, and Taiga’s made him feel awkward because things are finally good between them, have been for the last two years, and now Taiga’s bringing this in and Tatsuya doesn’t want to be in the position of saying no, but fuck, Taiga’s so fond of the way Tatsuya zips his coat, still unaccustomed to the cold weather even though he’s lived in it on and off for so long, and as Taiga opens the door for him Tatsuya meets that gaze, that warmth.  
  
And then he kisses Taiga, and despite thinking about doing just that all evening Taiga can’t move. By the time he can, Tatsuya’s gone, into the train station probably, and fuck. Taiga’s standing out here in just sweaters; he jams on an old pair of sneakers over his wool socks. He’s not often glad about having a car in the city (paying for parking, finding a street spot, goddamn) but he knows the best route to Tatsuya’s hotel and it’s a hell of a lot more direct than the CTA.   
  
He’s pushing the speed limit just a little bit on his way, but he gets there in less than twenty and it takes less than a minute to park on the street. Another to walk in, act casual with the staff and fend off their small talk (of course they know who he is; of course they let him up because it makes sense he’s got a friend on the Knicks and of course they’ll tell him Tatsuya’s room number).  
  
He’s leaning against the wall in the hotel hallway when Tatsuya gets back, his face red from the cold and his eye dark and sad, not even in the way where Taiga has to try and see beneath his mask.   
  
“Tatsuya.”  
  
Taiga pockets his car keys, and then crosses the distance, two feet maybe, to gather Tatsuya into his arms and kiss him for real (and holy shit, he’d caught Tatsuya off guard this time; holy shit Tatsuya’s lips are soft and cold).  
  
“Taiga—“  
  
Taiga cuts him off with another kiss. “Listen.” Another. "Next time, give me time to react, okay? I didn't know what to do and then when I did, you were already gone.”  
  
“I didn’t think you wanted—”  
  
“Really?” (Because even though Tatsuya’s always ambiguous, Taiga couldn’t be if he fucking tried.)  
  
“I wasn’t sure. I knew how I felt but I wasn't sure about you."  
  
He’s looking at the ground, at the snow and ice from his boots that’s already melted into the hideous carpet. Taiga cups his chin, tilting it up so Tatsuya’s eye meets his, and he seals it with the promise of another kiss, that if Tatsuya still isn’t sure Taiga will kiss him until he is.


	52. kagahimu, worthless

It hurts more when he thinks about his fist connecting with Taiga’s face when he thinks about his lips connecting with Taiga’s before, back when he could at least pretend things were better even though they’d both been keeping up the farce of brothers (and Taiga had still really believed). He’d sullied their bond with this long before any of his stupid incompetence as a role model on the court had taken foot outside of his head, before Taiga had noticed (even if it had only been a matter of time).  
  
He closes his eyes and sees Taiga stumble back and clutch his face; he squeezes them shut and sees Taiga, halfway confused but his lips parted with pleasure; he knows how soft they are and that they look like they’ve just been kissed because they have, because he’s been the one kissing them. It hurts more; it hurts like his mouth has just been punched, like his lips are about to swell up from an allergic reaction, because he’s not good enough to kiss Taiga without his nature showing itself. But when he reaches up a hand, his lips are the same as ever, normal sized. Taiga’s the one bearing the bruise; Tatsuya’s got nothing to show for it, not even the hurt open on his face. And does he even deserve to be hurt? After all he’d done to Tatsuya, he doesn’t deserve to pretend he’s the most affected. He’d got what was coming to him, for acting like that, for thinking like that, for not being good enough in the first place.   
  
He closes his eyes and Taiga’s kissing him back, like the way he’d just kissed Taiga, learning quickly, this just like basketball, holding him and pulling him closer. He’d burned with the dishonesty, even then; this is the closest he’ll ever get to the real thing. He hadn’t said then, that hey, we’re not actually brothers, I like you in a different way. What would Taiga have done? Tatsuya doesn’t want to think about it; any possibility would have been the worst. Rejection, acceptance, two blades of the same sword, nothing he’d been prepared for. Only to just stay in that liminal state where he could pretend to fool himself, except even that had stopped working. He’s not good at anything, and he’s especially no good at that, what kind of worthless man? What kind of worthless brother?


	53. kagahimu, metahuman au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still have no clue what a metahuman is (i think it's like the x-men?)

“You take,” says the man leaning over him, trying to look intimidating but really looking like some kind of fake punk juvenile delinquent (Tatsuya’s seen the real thing; they’re not that scarier but more of a threat than this person).  
  
“I take,” Tatsuya repeats.  
  
The words seem to reverberate in the bubble he’s in, and he feels even more isolated but maybe that’s the point. He wouldn’t want to use his ability; he never does; it’s just the nasty part of him, crawling under his skin. If he escapes he’ll still be inside it but at least people will be safe. They beat questions down at him but he’s seen fists; he’s seen abilities that vanish and fall to the ground between himself and someone else, and he’s trying hard but he’d always saved his hardest trying for Taiga. Because Taiga’s ability was the most beautiful, the reason he’d gone to that lab and said make me that, turn me into a monster. Be careful what you wish for, twenty-twenty hindsight; he’s not the kind of monster good people want to work with (he could, if only; he could be the type of person who steals evil people’s powers except who is he to decide what’s good and evil, and once they’re gone they don’t go anywhere tangible; he doesn’t get them). The questions stop; they sense he’s no longer listening.  
  
He’d seen Taiga on the way in; he’d known it would come to this, but if there’s anything Tatsuya’s always been good at it’s lying. Lying that he’s alright, lying that he’s not in pain when it’s taking every bit of effort for his body not to suck away and siphon of Taiga’s powers. Lying about why he’d left, making Taiga blame him (if he’d said it was to protect Taiga, he’d be on Tatsuya’s tail in a minute flat claiming that powers don’t matter when they’re nearly everything that does; Taiga would make him crumble and that’s all it would take). Taiga closes the door behind him; it’s the first time in years that Tatsuya hasn’t had to concentrate on his abilities just to stay in the same room with him. A relief. He can think clearer than he has in a long time with Taiga.   
  
"Hello, Taiga. You know why I did it, don't you?"  
  
“Yeah,” says Taiga, and it hurts a little more because Tatsuya knows it’s working, that Taiga thinks Tatsuya thinks a certain way, a way that wouldn’t be true even from the most twisted points of view. “It’s my fault.”


	54. garciraki, birthday

It’s the day before her birthday; Alex is too old for foolish wishes made because she’s too stubborn to take care of something herself but she makes one anyway. It’s already the eighth in Akita, the land Alex always pictures in perpetual snowfall even though Masako’s always complaining about the humidity when it hits August. Alex had missed that this year; there’s a lot she’s missed. (Not enough to call her and apologize, the more vindictive part of her mind says, but.)  
  
She’s tired, but calling Masako on her own birthday would put Masako in an unfair position, even if she'd ignore whatever bait Alex tried to float in front of her. They both know that, and so Alex lets the phone fall into her lap. Even months after their fight, she misses it; the loneliness is like a hole that she refuses to fill, even with empty air. She’s holding a place for Masako, in the hopes of what?  
  
The phone vibrates; it’s probably an email alert, another drugstore coupon. It vibrates again; her dad must have gotten the date of her birthday wrong and she looks at the face. It’s Masako, because of course it is. It rings; this is her fucking chance, and when she picks it up, finally, she’s afraid she’s missed it. But the face of her phone is green.  
  
“Masako?”  
  
“Alex. It’s still the seventh for you; I should have realized.”  
  
“It’s the eighth where you are. Is this a birthday call?”  
  
She hears Masako breathe on the other line, comfortable and familiar but with the space between them so clear and apparent, space for their fight to settle around them like a poisonous snake around both of their necks, ready to squeeze and bite. She hears the sound of the faucet in the background, probably Masako getting the kettle ready for the sea; her routine’s the same and Alex resists the temptation to assume it means that everything is the same, that she can still slide back in.  
  
But Masako had called her on her birthday, and even if that means she's not about to tackle anything serious it also means she hadn’t called to break up with Alex for good, to suggest they should make the chill of this fight permanent. A peace offering, if they’re both feeling enerous, and Alex is. So she listens to the water, from pipes half a world away, the sound of Masako breathing, clicking her tongue and snapping down the cap on the spout, and thinks of what exactly she should say to extend her own hand back and show Masako she means it.


	55. kisehimu, familiar territory

There’s a lot of familiar territory that they’re treading with each other, a little bit like a mirror but not in the usual way Ryouta adapts to fit into a reflection. They’re both pretty; they both know how to lie; they both lie in the same kind of way, so there’s a lot that stays unspoken between them (except Ryouta likes to talk until Tatsuya takes it as a challenge to meet him and matches his wit, his sword lighter and jabbing with little pricks but forcing back Ryouta’s heavier weapon just as well). There are things they don’t have to say, words that pass between them like fish in a pond, visible from above the water in bright patterns of white and flashing gold.   
  
Ryouta tries to fake him out, and he’s not used to being on level ground, but Tatsuya takes it for the advantage it is. After all, Ryouta’s got the advantage on the court, the advantage that he shouldn’t have but wields and presses down because he knows exactly what it means to Tatsuya. So this time Tatsuya doesn’t say he’s too familiar with lies to let Ryouta slip this one by him; it’s obvious enough.   
  
“I’d tell you to try harder, but it won’t work.” (Bait, if Ryouta sees fit to take it.)  
  
“No fair, Himuro-san. I don’t have anything on you at all. Where’s the fun in that?”  
  
Tatsuya grins halfway, just enough to twist his face and twist the rubber knife in Ryouta’s side. “I don’t know. It’s pretty fun for me.”  
  
“Rude,” Ryouta says, a huff and a pout on his lips, the pretty sort of whiny that everyone thinks they are but nobody is, except for him, somehow (and oh, Tatsuya cannot resist spoiling him; it’s another thing that’s entirely too much fun when the reward is Ryouta’s pretty smile, a kiss he’d have given anyway but that feels earned).   
  
This kiss is to prove a point, though, when he leans over the back of the couch and pushes his mouth against Tatsuya’s, his tongue between Tatsuya’s lips, hard and fast and without breath, in a way he knows Tatsuya can’t meet him physically, but if this is what Tatsuya’s got to give up—a brief dazed expression, another kiss returned, his lips swelling from being kissed so much, so hard, well. Better this than something he holds a little bit closer.


	56. nijihimu, spooky spirit realm au

It’s a few days before Shuuzou starts to feel like something’s not right, a few weeks before he begins to remember. It’s like the spires of buildings through the fog, only he’s not quite sure where he’d seen that before; the memories slip away like rain down the side of floor to ceiling windows all over again. Like a dream, maybe, only everything is so wrong here, as wrong as it is right.  
  
“You want to leave,” Tatsuya says after a time. “I won’t stop you.”  
  
The thing is, he’s happy here, with Tatsuya. There is some part of him that feels at peace, like this is the right thing, that this is where he should be. Of course Tatsuya is beautiful—leagues beyond anyone Shuuzou’s ever seen, though everyone here is beautiful and he can’t quite remember anyone else even though he must have had a family. A place to belong, a home. He thinks, quite suddenly, of a bridge he’d crossed, only he hadn’t crossed it; he’d stopped halfway and jumped off, safe in Tatsuya’s arms.   
  
The spires back in Tokyo, the home that he cannot go back to. His parents, stuck in Los Angeles, the path that leads back from the bridge to the hospital; he thinks of it, step over step, hands on the rope in his mind that ties everything to that memory. He doesn’t want to go; he thinks of how kind Tatsuya’s been to him. He thinks of how happy Tatsuya looks when he thinks Shuuzou’s not looking. He thinks of Tatsuya’s ethereal beauty, how clearly he’s not exactly human, how his skin glows in the dark with a lunar luminescence.   
  
It seems like a trap, but Tatsuya’s word is as it’s given, a priceless prize. Shuuzou wonders how many other people he’s had to let go, how many he didn’t, and decides it's not worth thinking about. He wonders how many years it’s been; he stares at his reflection in the water only he doesn’t quite remember what he’s supposed to look like. And he leaves, out of the lush meadows, down the hill until it becomes too steep and he skids, tumbling down, eyes closed, arms over his head, until—  
  
“Jesus Christ, kid, why are you trying to pull a stunt like that? Falling into a ditch?”  
  
Shuuzou looks up; above him the sun is harsh and the skyline is dotted with mountains and buildings. And right in front of him there’s a bridge, a middle-aged man smoking a cigarette.   
  
“I fell,” says Shuuzou.  
  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t see you jump but—never mind.”  
  
There’s a creek here in the spring, Shuuzou thinks, and maybe the weather would say it’s the spring but it must be the fall. When had he left? He can’t remember; his head hurts; where had he gone? He thinks about rain on glass buildings, like the times he’d cut school and hung out downtown.   
  
“Need help?”  
  
Shuuzou shakes his head, gets to his feet. Some part of his mind says he’d best avoid the route that uses this bridge in the future, and it’s probably superstition, avoiding some nasty fall, however he’d ended up there. He’s not sure where he’d been going, but he has to get home.


	57. nijihimu, enough

The biggest mistake Shuuzou had made with Tatsuya was assuming he could be satisfied with himself, assuming he could ever find himself enough, assuming he wouldn’t arbitrarily keep moving the goalposts. He’s gotten better and worse in bits after going away, more better but still in some ways more critical. A precise definition of the ways he doesn’t measure up, no longer directed at phantom long ago rivals but a list of traits, a list of things he’s decided he ought to be able to do, talents he can’t have but will continue to chase as they’re held just beyond his reach.   
  
“Tatsuya,” Shuuzou says. “This is enough.”  
  
Tatsuya looks at him, face hardening up as if to make itself impenetrable but not before the tiniest bit of hopelessness escapes, like he wants to believe but he can’t believe, that it would be nice but just look at what he’s comparing himself to—and, yeah, to an extent Shuuzou gets it. It’s more about one unreachable person than anyone else, someone he’d give his right arm for whose level to ascend to, something he wants so badly to share, something that person would be willing to share with him if he could. But Tatsuya, as much as he’d improved, is still within Shuuzou’s reach as a player (not that Shuuzou hasn’t improved, too); that’s not nothing. At least, it doesn’t feel like nothing to Shuuzou, the one time out of every ten he beats or ties Tatsuya, the next time Tatsuya comes back and trashes him, pulling out every reserve he can. Tatsuya is enough, more than enough, like this, even if it’s impossible to make him see that.   
  
He’d thought, once, that it’s that Tatsuya wants to be the best. That’s not quite it; Tatsuya does want to be the best and he wants to win every game, every quarter, every one on one, but there’s layers and layers of reason behind it, the things that had seemed tangential at the start (if only because Tatsuya had pretended they were that way and Shuuzou hadn’t known him well enough to see through the lie) that are integral. Tatsuya’s brother, the disparity between the two of them, the growing gulf, the Generation of Miracles—people who are on Tatsuya’s brother’s level with half the effort Tatsuya makes in clawing all the way up to his own, the fact that there are people out there, enough others to get there that Tatsuya should be able to, and yet. It’s more than that; Shuuzou’s just scratched through to the next level as even more are being built on top of that. And maybe Tatsuya will never let him all the way in, but does he need to when the answer is this simple?  
  
“You are enough," Shuuzou says, as their lips meet, and this is not the time he will believe it, but perhaps it will build the foundation on which to put the battering ram that will finally get through to Tatsuya that he is.


	58. mayuhimu, a dream of talking snowmen

God, Chihiro had had the weirdest fucking dream and it’s not even good enough to write any of it down for a book. Talking snowmen, ice palaces, sounds like that Disney movie that Tatsuya’s little cousin had forced them to sit through (“You talk like it’s prison, Chihiro,” Tatsuya had said, and Chihiro had had things to write, intellectual conversations to have with Tatsuya; kids that age should nap and television is not good for their brains, but Tatsuya’s the one with the patience to deal with the kid, on the other hand) but on the other hand, what the fuck. That’s the last time Chihiro’s staying up fifty hours straight to get to some deadline (he’d said that last time, but there had been considerably less in the way of energy drinks, Tatsuya worrying, and shitty dreams). He looks at the clock; he could have been asleep ten or twenty-two hours, not that it really matters. Tatsuya should be home, regardless of the time.  
  
He’s sitting on the couch, reading the paper.  
  
“I had a dream you literally froze me out because I forgot our anniversary,” says Chihiro. “Also, you made a talking snowman. It was fucking hideous.”  
  
“Sounds like a great book,” says Tatsuya. “You should write it down.”  
  
“Ha, ha,” says Chihiro. “Not my demographic.”  
  
“Do we even have an anniversary?” says Tatsuya.  
  
“All couples do,” says Chihiro.  
  
“You mean you don’t remember?”  
  
“You don’t, either; you’d better not plunge the world into an ice age after you pick some arbitrary date and I don’t, like, psychically know it.”  
  
“Go back to bed,” says Tatsuya. “You need at least fifteen more hours of sleep if you’re going to be like this.”  
  
Chihiro ignores him and flops down on the couch, stealing Tatsuya’s mug of coffee (gross, but Tatsuya never drinks tea and at least it’s warm because for some reason Tatsuya had left the space heater off and opened the window—maybe that’s why he’d been dreaming about ice, because Tatsuya likes everything so damn drafty and uncomfortable, even if he acts like it’s because he wants to hold Chihiro tighter or some sappy romantic shit). Tatsuya doesn’t glance at it, reading some article (or pretending to) about some business shit that he’s not actually interested in. He can fake ignoring Chihiro all he wants; Chihiro knows when he’s noticed and when he’s not. And if Tatsuya’s got to pretend to ignore him, he’s going to chalk up another tally in his favor.


	59. susaima, distraction kiss

The door swings closed behind Momoi; Imayoshi’s still kissing Susa and it still feels pretty damn good. He tastes like toothpaste and tea, and somehow that’s surprising. What’s not surprising is the way he’s still kissing Susa but making him do all the work, and that gets annoying pretty quickly so Susa gently pushes him off.  
  
“You know, if you wanted to kiss me all you had to do was ask.”  
  
Imayoshi raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think I wanted to?”  
  
“You were pretty enthusiastic,” says Susa. “Also I can think of like, a million other things to do with a fire extinguisher that would be better than pointing it at my head—which you’re still doing.”  
  
“You don’t think I’d actually use it?” says Imayoshi, pouting his lips and damn it, he knows that’s somehow cute on a face like his.   
  
Susa snorts. “I think you’d devise this whole elaborate plan coinciding with the birthday cake so that you could kiss me and play it off while killing two potential birds with one stone.”  
  
“I can be direct,” says Imayoshi.   
  
“Right,” says Susa. “Is that why you suddenly forgot how to do derivatives and made me teach you, in an effort to both flirt with me and annoy me?”  
  
“That worked?” says Imayoshi. “Why didn’t you kiss me then?”  
  
“You didn’t deserve it,” says Susa. “Just say what you want, okay?”  
  
He maybe says that a little bit too loudly; Momoi’s footsteps creep nearer the kitchen door and he hears at least one trace of music behind a door fall away as if turned down so the listener can pay attention to whatever’s going on outside.   
  
“Well,” says Imayoshi.  
  
“Inside,” says Susa, opening the door to his room.  
  
Imayoshi takes the bed without an invitation, which is so typical, but whatever. There’s room for Susa to sit down next to him, and the fire extinguisher rests on the ground between them. Susa sighs, curling his fingers around the bedspread and then Imayoshi leans over to kiss him again. This is a real kiss, without half-true premise and without props, just Imayoshi’s mouth on Susa’s. It feels nice; Susa relaxes into it and runs his tongue over Imayoshi’s lip and the front of his teeth; their noses brush against each other but it doesn’t feel overly awkward and—  
  
Susa jerks back and swears as the fire alarm begins to sound; Imayoshi grabs the fire extinguisher and they rush out into the hall. Momoi is coughing and sputtering, emerging from the kitchen followed by a trail of grey smoke, and Susa doubts that even she will see the merit of serving a cake in whatever stuck-to-the-oven state it’s been left in.


	60. kagahimu, road trip

They stay that night in a Motel, and afterwards Taiga can’t remember if it was a Motel 6 or Best Western or something else, because he never pays attention to that shit in the first place, but he especially doesn’t when there are other details coming into every facet of his brain. The way Tatsuya pats his shoulder when they get a room, and the way that though they’ve stayed in rooms with a single bed before this time Taiga notices the concierge looking at them in a certain way. He’s not going to bring it up; he’s not going to ask because he knows the answer, that obviously they look like they’re a couple, Tatsuya leaning on him slightly and looking up, the dumb expression Taiga knows he’s wearing.  
  
Because he's tired, and after that stop there’s a sense of urgency, like what if something happens again (anything could happen; the shitty rental car could have broken down all the way back in Delaware or they could have chosen the wrong motel and got held up for everything they own even though they don’t look like they have as much money as they do and they don’t star in some shitty television drama because even if the chances are slim that shit happens) and they haven’t, and they don’t. This isn’t something they can rush, but it’s like someone had peeled away the last flake of scab over a scar that blends in better than expected, that if they did it now it would be okay.  
  
Taiga kisses Tatsuya while they’re waiting for the ice machine, two cans of warm Pabst from the sketchy convenience store across the street ready to be chilled. Tatsuya almost drops his water bottle, and then almost lets it overflow; his mouth is dry and gross and tastes like cheap snack cakes and artificial fruit, and even though it still feels like they had to Taiga’s already regretting having waited so long. They could have been sleeping together by Alabama; they could have spent so many restless nights doing this instead of trying to freak each other out by wondering aloud if this particular place has bedbugs and they’re going to infest their clothes and the car, or maybe they would have done that anyway but in between kisses. Maybe Taiga’s brain should shut the fuck up, because they’re kissing now and Tatsuya’s hand comes up to his face and the cold water bottle is soaking condensation into Taiga’s shirt but it’s already wrinkled and even if it wasn’t who would give a fuck?


	61. nijihimu, spies au

“What happened to, ‘I’m so glad you're alive, sleep with me?’ I like that bit of the debriefing,” Tatsuya says, frowning.  
  
“I never say that part,” says Shuuzou. “It just happens.”  
  
“Can it happen a little bit now?” says Tatsuya, and then he leans in and almost (not quite, okay maybe) kisses Shuuzou, a little bit of a cheat and another thing to put down on the list of things Tatsuya’s done to aggravate him today, only this part’s on the good half of the list—not that Tatsuya’s ever supposed to know that part exists, except he probably already does. “Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah,” Shuuzou echoes, leaning in and trying to convey how fucking glad he is that Tatsuya had gotten out safe, that they’re together again, how much he’d missed him since the last mission, all in a very real kiss. “Just a little bit, though.”  
  
The pilot’s still up front, nominally with her eyes on the air and the screens around her, but they can’t get away with too much even if Tatsuya goes for a dirty talk in Japanese (their faces and noises will be enough, and even this much is not standard procedure and there’s only so far Shuuzou trusts her, only as far as he trusts anyone who isn’t Tatsuya, who he probably shouldn’t be trusting that much in the first place, except—but then, Tatsuya’s always the exception). Tatsuya’s still smiling, and Shuuzou still can’t fucking get over how he’d said that about Shuuzou being beautiful when he’s angry. He still can’t get over how absolutely irresponsible Tatsuya was, how he knows only he can get away with shit like that and then stretches the limits again and again, but, well. He’d gotten the job done (which includes getting out alive, in one piece), but Shuuzou’s still pretty fucking mad.   
  
“You aren’t forgiven just yet, you know. Fucking reckless,” he murmurs, back to Japanese, kissing Tatsuya’s cheek this time (he can almost taste the heavy artillery, a near-missed that Shuuzou had thought for sure, it had to, but there was Tatsuya, still shooting back, and fuck).   
  
Tatsuya doesn’t laugh, because he does know how serious Shuuzou is and sometimes he treats that with the normal, appropriate reaction. He nods, wrapping his arms around Shuuzou’s waist. The copter’s awfully cramped, and Shuuzou starts to wish that they could partition it off and then fuck in here. And then do it after the debriefing for good measure, too.  
  
This is the fastest ride they’ve got, on the most direct route they can risk, but it feels like forever right about now.


	62. nijihimu, at the bottom

Tatsuya wonders if there’s ever going to be a time when he doesn’t have to fight to maintain himself when Shuus around. Maybe it’s because of the way they met, the circumstances in which Shuu had pulled off that willingness to fight dirty in the middle of formal karate moves, the way he’d let Shuu take his hands, how reckless he'd been when he’d thought they’d never meet again. How they’d kept meeting, texting back and forth, how this mode of being around Shuu had been impossible to get out of, how aware he’d been of the way Shuu had looked at him, like he was amazing. Like he could be and do something. Like the way he’d said he’d played with and against guys who were good at basketball and not in the way Tatsuya was, and how Tatsuya had barely been able to take it as backhanded as he always wants to take compliments. How Shuu is so nice to Tatsuya it makes him want to cry.  
  
He doesn’t deserve this; he’s jerking Shuu around and leaving his arms in the middle of the night; he feels so broken and frustrated and restless and Shuu is always following him, pulling him back, nearly seeing what he is but keeping his hand so tightly in Tatsuya’s that Tatsuya feels like he’s been caught in a forest fire, like his chest is tight and burning.   
  
Shuu’s got issues of his own, the relationship with his parents that he’s still working through, the quiet admission that he loves his younger siblings so goddamn much but he resents them, too, like his parents had seen him as such a fuckup and decided to start over with two good kids, even though he knows that’s not true. But how he admits it, how he deals with it, is years beyond where Tatsuya thinks his own capabilities will ever reach, and still Shuu reaches for him. Entwines their fingers like gold and copper wire, like he’s going to coat them and weld them together, like he doesn’t care that Tatsuya’s problems drag both of them down, like he thinks he’s buoyant enough to keep them at the surface, or that he’d rather drown with Tatsuya. Like that Tatsuya’s already let him see too much, wants him to see more (so he’ll realize and he’ll fucking stop) and wants him to see less (wants him to keep up this image of Tatsuya as someone good in his mind). But instead of either of those, he just slips further and further, his hand in Shuu’s, off a cliff—where anything could be at the bottom.


	63. taiga + nijihimu, gang au

These thugs are even more pathetic than usual. All it takes is a growl and a punch and a command to tell me where he is, and Taiga’s got the location. The very real fear in the kid’s eyes (and they’re all way too young for this, but Taiga would be nowhere if he pitied everyone coerced or volunteered into some rival gang way over their head) tells him that it’s most likely the truth, or at least the truth as he knows it, which is better than nothing to go on. He brushes his hand over his belt, feeling the gun tucked in, checking the safety, but he’s not going to waste any more time. He doesn’t know enough about Tatsuya’s Shuu to know if he’s going to try anything stupid, or if he makes himself an easy target.  
  
The sun’s hot overhead, but Taiga’s not sweating yet. It’ll take more than that; he’s fairly accustomed to the heat. All the kinds of heat around him, the pressure of time, the place still only half known (at least he’s not Tatsuya who might get lost trying to go around the block) but two rights and a left and then straight down ought to do it. The warehouse with all the windows gone on the second floor, he can remember that. He doesn’t turn on the car radio and leaves it in first gear the whole way; it’s quieter (one of these days he’s going to make Tatsuya buy him an electric car with a trunk in the front and stealth level sound). He leaves the windows up, sloppy parallel parked in front of a Ford Taurus wagon that looks like more rust than car right about now.  
  
Maybe he should have sped the car up, because he can hear voices as he approaches (fucking pathetic, they’re lucky the cops haven’t busted them already). He’s already shooting as he opens the door, eyes adjusting to the low light but there’s only one short man holding a gun, not at all Shuu's description but his head’s an easy target. And there, tied up, is the person who must be Shuu. Cute, if that’s Tatsuya’s type, but they should get out of here.   
  
“Hey. You're Shuu, right? Tatsuya's Shuu? Come on. This way.”  
  
Shuu gives him a suspicious look (smart, good) as Taiga unties him, but then he seems to see the necklace, and, well, Taiga's got no idea how much Tatsuya had told him but that’s apparently enough.  
  
“You’re Taiga.”  
  
“Yup, and you’re dating my brother. Be good to him, or I might not save you next time."


	64. imakasa, morning after sex

Kasamatsu does not, in fact, wake up with a hangover. He credits it to the probable gallon of water he’d ended up drinking the night before because his mouth had been dry and he’d had to take a leak like, every thirty minutes or something ridiculous, but he’d felt closer to sober before going to bed. Imayoshi, on the other hand, had finished Kasamatsu’s edamame, ordered another bowl for himself, had a few glasses of water and is now hiding under the covers.   
  
Unfortunately, Kasamatsu had been too drunk and then Imayoshi had been too asleep for them to actually have sex, even though Imayoshi had placed his hand in Kasamatsu’s lap, groping what he’d thought was Kasamatsu’s dick but was really just a lump in the fabric (yeah, it was dark, but he probably needs a new prescription, too). It could have been a nice one night stand, full of cliches about their past captaining rival high school basketball teams and then teaming up for streetball, but they’d missed the chance. It’s not like Kasamatsu wants to be Imayoshi’s boyfriend or some shit like that; it’s not something he can picture Imayoshi wanting (though maybe that’s more in line of his caricatured vision of Imayoshi back in high school, closed eyes as drawn shades to the window of his empty soul behind those glasses). It’s a weird fantasy to have, a salaryman who thinks his best days might be behind him waking up in an inn with an old acquaintance with whom he’d missed his chance.   
  
“How’s your head?”  
  
One hand emerges from under the blanket to flip him the bird. Kasamatsu snorts. What he wouldn’t have given back in the day for this kind of schadenfreude. Maybe he’s not as much of an adult as he thinks he is, but what’s there to look forward to? Balding, taking home money to an empty apartment? Maybe there’s still a little alcohol in him.  
  
“It would make me feel better if you jerked me off.”  
  
Imayoshi’s voice is muffled. Kasamatsu pauses; he doesn’t want Imayoshi to vomit all over him (probably no quicker way to kill a boner) and he doesn’t want to have to smell Imayoshi’s breath right now anyway. And Imayoshi’s just playing with him. Kasamatsu sighs.  
  
“Please? I’ll get you off too; it’ll be fun.”  
  
Kasamatsu snorts, but two minutes later he’s lying under the covers next to Imayoshi with his pants down.


	65. kisehimu, winter spirit!tatsuya

Ryouta had once asked Tatsuya if he dreams. He doesn’t, or if he does there are so many that he can’t remember; the shock of waking up into the world after everything buries them back in his subconscious under drifts of snow. He thinks that perhaps he had once dreamed, long ago when he’d had a normal sleep cycle, before Ryouta (long before Ryouta, who even now is just a blip), before everything.   
  
He remembers the first time he’d seen Ryouta, whining and dragging his feet and clinging to his sister’s hand, just another pretty child only he hadn’t been; he’d seen Tatsuya in the snow and reached for him. And then he’d found Tatsuya, years later; he’s made no secret of his pursuit of a sight, an ideal, his role in all of this. Tatsuya would rather not wake up late, but he would rather wake up on his own terms, not through magic dust that makes him sneeze—except, Ryouta. Ryouta who still whines but stands on his own, an adult, for a few handfuls of years longer until—but unlike all the others, with Ryouta there is no until. That’s a reckless thought, wishful thinking Tatsuya supposes, but Ryouta still flits from place to place like a butterfly, not one to settle for full time anything, Tatsuya’s part time keeper and up to who knows what the rest of the year.  
  
Someday, though, he'll grow tired of this, but at least he does not expect Tatsuya to give him everything, even now. He’ll take, even what Tatsuya doesn’t intend to give, like these kisses as Tatsuya’s barely blinking back the sleep from his eyes, startling into the summer heat, uncomfortable around him like clothes that are just a little tight, seams on pants digging into his calves. But he forgets his discomfort, the urge to push back the summer already, too soon. With Ryouta’s hand in his, Ryouta’s mouth on his again, the summer seems suddenly a little more pleasant. The green leaves on the trees are not quite as annoying as they usually seem, but the soft ring like bells of the ice stuck to his robe drowns out everything else, other than Ryouta’s smile.  
  
"It's still summer. Plenty of time to play before you need to get to work. You've been sleeping for long enough, haven't you? I was starting to miss you."  
  
(He still talks too much, but that’s never going to change.)


	66. aohimu + aokagahimu

It had been so good back in LA, the sun shining harsh through the window but Himruo’s beauty still soft but sharp, like glass shards made out of cotton at max thread count, and Aomine had finally let himself stare. Swallow, watch Himuro wash the dishes in the sink, soap and water splashing the sleeves of his button-down shirt where he’d rolled them up past his elbows. And Aomine had stared, and Himuro had turned and looked back, and waited for Aomine to kiss him.   
  
He’d taught Aomine how to kiss, more than burying his face in his pillow (not that he’d done that very often, okay, just once on a dare from Satsuki) and weird party games and a handful of hookups ever did, how to go from sweet and slow and soft to just wanting to something a little rougher. All this time Aomine had thought Himuro had wanted Kagami, and he’d said so and that had made Himuro stiffen and pretend he didn’t, turn halfway toward the opposite wall on the bed next to him.  
  
“Hey,” Aomine had said. “I want him, too, as much as I want you.”  
  
(And then he’d kissed Himuro to emphasize that Kagami wasn’t the one he’d wanted more; he’d jerked Himuro off while while detailing how much he’d like to see Himuro fucking Kagami, Kagami riding Himuro’s cock, that magnificent ass of his and sweat on both of their faces, and that had gone on for quite a while.)  
  
And then it had gotten closer to reality, Himuro living with Kagami, Aomine staying over just for a bit. The way Himuro had looked at him, that even though they’d never discussed their relationship as it was, what it was, given it a name and a role and a set of restrictions. Right now, they both still want; they want each other and they want Kagami, and Aomine’s pretty sure Kagami wants them, too (well, Himuro at least, but Aomine doesn’t mind being a bit of an accessory, at least to start with).  
  
And then they kiss, him and Himuro in Kagami’s place, and Aomine feels like he’s about to set the world on fire. He feels Kagami’s gaze boring into his head, not with jealousy but with curiosity and his own building desire, and Aomine’s already grinning into Himuro’s mouth because he’s waited so goddamn long for this and he can’t wait another goddamn second.


	67. aokagahimu, one off?

  
After all of it, after the bites in Tatsuya’s neck that are definitely going to show up in the next game they play, half from him; after all three of them come in sequence; after he’s had both Aomine’s and Tatsuya’s hands inside of him; after he’s watched Aomine ride Tatsuya halfway and had Aomine’s cock in to the back of his throat; after the lube is drying on his hands and the come on his stomach and he just feels gross; Taiga rolls off and onto the floor. The couch is big, but it’s not big enough for all of them at once, and if this was just a one off thing to sate his desires (when he can feel it building all over again looking at Tatsuya and Aomine spent and dirty and tangled in each other, the things he’s so shamefully imagined about them, only starring him, too) then he’d best get out of here.  
  
“Stay,” Tatsuya says, reaching out to brush his fingers across Taiga’s knee.   
  
His voice is softer than it had been when he’d asked that of Taiga before, not as firm but just as wanting. More as wanting, a deeper part of Tatsuya. His hand tangles in Aomine’s hair, his eye looks Taiga up and down, the shirt still pushed up to his chest just beginning to fall, the holes in his socks, the come on his stomach.   
  
“The couch,” says Taiga.   
  
“We can move to the bed,” says Tatsuya, patting Aomine’s ass. “Up.”  
  
Aomine grunts, but Tatsuya disentangles himself and sits off, managing to avoid getting the couch dirty, and holds up his hand. Taiga pulls him to his feet, and Tatsuya keeps their hands together, still dirty.  
  
“We should shower,” says Taiga.  
  
“Later,” says Tatsuya, kissing his shoulder.  
  
Aomine doesn’t follow them just yet, and Taiga takes Tatusya in. Naked, face a bit flushed, still so beautiful, only now Taiga doesn’t feel guilty for looking.   
  
“What took you so long?” Tatsuya says.  
  
“I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea,” Taiga says. “Like I wanted to take this from you.”  
  
“Oh, Taiga,” Tatsuya says, his voice suddenly just a bit sad, which for Tatsuya means misery deeper than the Marianas Trench, and no, not now when everything is good.   
  
“Because I don’t,” Taiga says. “I’m glad you asked.”   
  
He squeezes Tatsuya’s hand; Tatsuya looks up at him and Aomine, finally caught up, drops one arm around each of their shoulders.   
  
“We going to bed or what?”


	68. aokagahimu, wonderful

Tatsuya is wonderful all of the time. Taiga’s pretty sure he doesn’t tend to equivocate about that, but it’s fucking true. Tatsuya’s always amazing. But when he lets himself be greedy, when he tells himself it’s okay to want, that it’s okay for him to want Taiga and Daiki both at once, all of both of them at once. That he shouldn’t keep it all in until he feels like he’s going to explode, like he still does sometimes, but when he lets all that want out it’s sweet and slow like nectar drowning both of them in him, absolutely brilliant, better than Taiga could conceptualize himself.   
  
When it’s sex, it’s pretty fucking awesome, but when it’s not, it’s even better. The times they go to the movies, to see some stupid comedy that isn’t even that funny (except in the remarks they make under their breaths) and Tatsuya’s sitting between them, one arm around each of their wastes, and Taiga feeds him popcorn until Tatsuya licks off the grease and Daiki lets him sip on the soda that he won’t let Taiga have until after the movie, finally, some stupid petty shit that’s okay because it makes Tatsuya laugh about them and that smile on his face is always worth it. Or when they’re in the kitchen and Daiki’s bothering Taiga while he’s cooking and Tatsuya comes over to put some more vegetables in the pan, and after he slides them in from the cutting board he bumps Taiga from the other side and Taiga’s arm is around his waist and Daiki’s hand is brushing the back of his neck and Tatsuya manages to lean across and kiss them both, because as much as they love spoiling him (it’s not like he’s the one who wants here) he gives way better than he gets, and way more. It’s not fair at all, but Taiga feels powerless.  
  
Except when he kisses Tatsuya just so, or he watches Daiki do the same, watch Tatsuya take longer than he thinks he should to draw back, when his hands reach to pull Taiga in, always making sure they’re both included because he wants them both and wants them to know it, because he thinks his want would overwhelm just one of them (and Tatsuya’s stronger still than Daiki knows, but they’re stronger than Tatsuya gives them credit for). Because that’s how it is, the three of them and all their want pooled in the center and piled on each other, and Taiga wouldn’t have it any other way.


	69. kagahimu, android!tatsuya

There’s no use. A siren echoes across the air; today it’s moderately cloudy and already Tatsuya’s wi-fi signal is dialing in the weather forecast. Warm, mix of sun and clouds, some scattered showers. Normal. He doesn’t expect to somehow feel it more than he usually does across his temperature sensors, like some kind of awakening; he’s not sure he’s been programmed for that kind of anticipation. Soon he’ll be out of range of the router, but he knows the local hotspots, places Taiga’s taken him where he eats and Tatsuya almost thinks of playing pretend, his sensors analyzing the hamburgers Taiga shoves into his mouth in ways he hadn’t thought humans were capable of. But Taiga is extraordinary.  
  
(Turn back, Tatsuya tells himself. Taiga has the capacity to care for two robots, even if one is obsolete and one is broken, but it’s Tatsuya who has the problem, Tatsuya who can’t deal with Taiga caring for another robot, because he’s had Taiga’s undivided attention before and now he’ll always be chasing it. The worst kind of unlucky, not appreciating what he’d had for what it was.)  
  
He makes it to the park, and Taiga finds him while he’s staring at kids playing a game of pickup basketball. He thinks he should run, but he can’t get away; Taiga’s already seen him; he’s already been too much of a coward. If he could melt, if he could break right now, push this away again and let Taiga fix him, too, be consumed with him, then—they’d still have to talk after all of this is over.   
  
(Maybe he’s going to ask Tatsuya to give, some power supply, some redundant part, something of him to complete Kuroko; maybe he just wants Tatsuya to see.)  
  
“Tatsuya,” Taiga says, voice soft and a little bit worn down, different from the way he was with Kuroko (and Tatsuya’s never going to stop comparing the two of them in his head now).  
  
“Taiga,” says Tatsuya.  
  
Taiga sits down beside him, sighing, but not saying anything. He knows Tatsuya well enough to know that he’s going to need to be the one to speak first, to decide which question is the most important, or comes before everything else.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Taiga says, which is not what Tatsuya expects at all.  
  
“Don’t apologize for what you want,” says Tatsuya.   
  
“That’s not—whatever you think I want, whether it has to do with him or just with me, I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t want you. Or need you. If you need some time, that’s okay, but.”  
  
There’s a different sensation through Tatsuya’s wires now, a distant relative of the other, hot and cold and sweet and overwhelming, in a way that makes him want to crumple his face and sob like he’s seen people on television do. He’s not capable of crying, and he doesn’t think he’d like to if he were, but as Taiga pulls him in closer he just lets himself feel.


	70. kagahimu, better stuff

There are times when Tatsuya turns away, like he’s forcing himself, like he’s hiding some horribly guilty secret from Taiga that he really doesn’t want to, when he can’t meet Taiga’s gaze with his own. And then there are times he buries that secret within him again and acts like everything is normal and like Taiga hadn’t seen. It’s not easier but simpler to put it out of his mind and focus on training, on being with Tatsuya, on answering media questions, until he’s up late alone in a giant bed in a hotel room and he can’t think about that block he should have had any longer.  
  
The thing is, he can’t even let himself think about the big stuff. The stuff that would be on that magnitude that Tatsuya’s placing it, like he’d killed someone or cheated or—God, just that thought fills his mouth with lead. Impossible, but on that magnitude? It doesn’t even have much to do with basketball, much correlation with their one-on-ones, the way Tatsuya studies him, finds the weaknesses in his game before his coaches even do, attacks them and corrects them with every bit of intensity and fervor he can manage.   
  
He should ask, but what would Tatsuya say?   
  
His mind is still unsettled, in the air flying over the rockies, the high altitudes of Denver and the rooms with views of oil fields in Texas, the familiar cityscape of LA in his room at his father’s house. He should ask Alex, but then again this is between the two of them, isn’t it? And just thinking about it gives him a conclusion that maybe he’d been spiralling toward the whole time. That maybe Tatsuya thinks—why would he think that? Because he’s Tatsuya, because doubt is his middle name everywhere but on his birth certificate. Because not wanting to take something for granted will turn itself inside out like it’s been tossed around in a washing machine until he’s afraid of everything disintegrating.   
  
They’re made of better stuff than that.   
  
Taiga’s not really sure how to go about this, how to tell him, how to talk it through, but that will come on its own and it’s definitely not something they should do right when he gets home from the road trip. So he gathers Tatsuya in his arms and kisses every inch of his face he can and murmurs as much praise and happiness as he can pack into words and hopes that it’s enough to tide them over.


	71. kagahimu, metahuman??? au

“You don’t have to tell me this is a bad idea,” Taiga says,   
  
“I didn’t say anything,” says Kuroko, pretending to attend to his equipment, but who the fuck does he think he’s fooling?  
  
Kuroko doesn’t approve of much, but he shouldn’t approve of this, if Taiga’s being honest with himself. He knows it’s a shitty idea; he knows what had happened the last few times he’d met Tatsuya. The familiar way he’d fought, the way he'd run for his life and the way he’d let those three guys fight for him. The way it’s about winning more than anything for him, the way he thinks there’s no way they can win together, he and Taiga. Sure they’re on opposite sides; sure Taiga’s team has a lot of old beef with him. Taiga would make them come around (and if he couldn’t, Tatsuya himself, charming and generous and wonderful) and if they still held their grudges, well. It’s not unheard of to break off and form your own team.   
  
Getting a lofty goal like that, so far in the future from the wreckage that is all that remains of their relationship right now, though, well, that might be a problem. It’s extremely shortsighted to write it off (or just pessimistic, but that’s Tatsuya) but Taiga’s not so naive to think that it won’t take a hell of a lot of work.  
  
He’s just got to get Tatsuya, one on one, the way Tatsuya wants. Take some time, even when they’re dodging each other’s punches, to get him to listen, to offer a hand. Not conditional on one of them winning, one of them walking away a certain way, just a plea. Something serious, something to make him understand that Taiga means it. That after everything he loves Tatsuya still, and that he wants to give them a real try. That the way he loves Tatsuya means he’s not going to give up, that he’ll let Tatsuya walk away if that’s what he really wants but he’s not just letting it happen without trying to make him stay. That he wouldn’t if he didn’t see it in Tatsuya that he wants it, too, even if he won’t let himself believe.  
  
“Give us the signal if you need us," says Kuroko.  
  
Taiga knows he’s not going to need to be bailed out from this one. He’s going to go all the way, wherever that leads him, wherever he and Tatsuya end up.


	72. kagahimu + kagakuro

“Taiga,” says Alex, and he knows what’s coming next, so he cuts her off with a frown.  
  
Her face softens, and she reaches over to smooth the hair out of his eyes and then her face shifts back so taht she’s giving him a very stern look.  
  
“I know you’re hurting, but it’s awfully obvious your heart’s not in this.”  
  
She doesn’t have to be more specific for Taiga to know she’s talking about his relationship with Kuroko; she didn’t even have to go this far for him to know that. It’s always on his mind, when he wakes up in bed with Kuroko next to him and the bed still feels empty and it still feels like he’s betraying Tatsuya. When his hand is in Kuroko’s hair and it feels so horribly unfair that he’s pretending, that he’s not trying hard enough to really fall in love.   
  
“Do you think he knows?”  
  
“Kuroko? Yeah. Almost everyone does.”  
  
“Shit,” says Taiga. “He hasn’t called me on it—”  
  
“It’s because he likes you,” says Alex. “He wants to believe that one day you’ll just wake up liking him back and he has to be patient, but it doesn’t do either of you any good to wait for that when it’s probably not going to happen.”  
  
Taiga sighs; he doesn’t have to say he’s still not over Tatsuya. “Does Tatsuya know?”  
  
“No,” says Alex. “He’s—well.”  
  
“He's what?” says Taiga.  
  
“He wants to believe you’re happy, so that’s what he’s going to see.”  
  
“Funny how he didn’t believe that when we were happy,” says Taiga, casting a bitter look at his fries, as if the potatoes were still raw.  
  
Alex hums, not in disagreement. And Taiga supposes they hadn’t been as happy as he’d thought, that that had been what he’d waited his whole life for and he’d seen what he’d wanted to see. Tatsuya had hidden his discomfort, but Taiga hadn’t looked for it. He hadn’t been proactive, even though he should have known, because he knows Tatsuya. And right now Tatsuya wants to believe he’s happy, and.   
  
“Does that mean—does he still want—”  
  
“Ask him,” says Alex. “You two have to figure this out for yourselves. I’m looking out for you, but I’m not going to do this for you.”  
  
“I know,” says Taiga, chomping down on a fry perhaps more viciously than necessary.   
  
Alex smiles at him, soft and tired but still firm. “But you need to clear things up with Kuroko, okay?”  
  
“Okay.”


	73. kagakuro, i want you here

“Dad gave me money to fly someone out,” says Taiga. “So come.”  
  
“Taiga,” says Tatsuya, but there’s no way he can say no, not even over the phone, not when he can hear it in Taiga’s voice how much he wants him there; he’s always had difficulty denying Taiga anything especially when he so rarely asks for it.  
  
“Is that a yes?”  
  
Tatsuya laughs. “Demanding, aren’t we? That’s a yes.”  
  
“I want you here,” says Taiga, his voice crumbling like a piece of rich pound cake in Tatsuya’s hands and, oh.  
  
“Yeah,” says Tatsuya softly. “Yeah.”  
  
His thumb traces over the chain around his neck, where it’s been repaired, where the material doesn’t quite match, where it looks only a few shades lighter but the difference shines through, where the seams of each link are a little bit off.   
  
*  
  
Taiga had looked so certain when they’d said goodbye that Tatsuya would be hesitant to say he looks even more certain now, except the more he looks at Taiga the more he’d say that. Taiga’s bigger, stronger, definitely taller and broader than he is now; he holds Tatsuya in a hug that goes a little too long and his voice is firmer; he acts like he knows what he’s doing, like he knows his way around. Like maybe he’s at home in this city that’s completely alien to Tatsuya with its functional public transportation system and the different distribution of neighborhoods, except when they get into the apartment, tastefully but minimally decorated, and Taiga pulls him down onto the couch, and hugs him again, this feels different. Like a release.  
  
"I missed you so much,” Taiga whispers into his neck. “I’m so glad you came, Tatsuya.”  
  
Tatsuya’s heart feels like it’s overflowing, like too much something has been pumped in and he can barely breathe, and forget every resolution he’d made about controlling his feelings because they’re controlling him, making his pulse pound wildly, making him breathe in the smell of Taiga, so familiar and comforting, focus on that.   
  
“I missed you, too, Taiga,” Tatsuya says, only it comes out less light than he’d intended, and that tone catches in Taiga’s ears.  
  
He pulls back, looking into Tatsuya’s face, searching for something, until he seems to find it and then comes forward, leaning in slowly enough for Tatsuya to pull away if he wants to. He should want to; this is a terrible fucking idea; they haven’t even played basketball yet—he lets those thoughts immobilize him until Taiga’s mouth, soft and warm, is on his.


	74. kagahimu, fire & ice au

There are still times, after years (collections of days they’ve lost track of like loose change in a jar because like this they live a little bit longer, their lives stretched out like bridges made completely out of expansion joints as the rivers and bays yawn wider between them) that Taiga still seems to see him fresh, still seems like he’s about to burn up completely and turn to ash with the way they’re looking at each other. It’s flattering; Tatsuya’s not going to lie about that part, that he still has this effect on Taiga (they’ve been seeing each other like this for how long, on top of knowing each other, being two parts of the same set all of their lives?) that he can still overwhelm him.  
  
But the fact remains that they’re kissing and Taiga’s getting dangerously hot.   
  
“Focus, Taiga,” Tatsuya says, pulling back and crooning the words into his neck, sliding his hands up Taiga’s shirt, feeling the skin almost hot enough to melt him beneath.  
  
He lets his fingers condense and freeze, stiffening Taiga’s shirt with the sweat on his back, the moisture in the air, cooling his body off before it all melts back because his heat is so steady and constant, the nuclear explosion in million-year chain reactions like the surface of a star. Taiga makes a strangled sort of sound and Tatsuya laughs, quiet against his neck.   
  
“Tatsuya—”  
  
The ice at Tatsuya’s fingertips is sublimating against the bare skin at the base of Taiga’s neck, but he can feel Taiga’s pulse slowing, his body temperature falling back again. He looks a little bit less urgent and strained, not like his skin’s about to melt.   
  
“Better?”   
  
Tatsuya undoes the top two buttons of Taiga’s shirt (Taiga makes no move to stop him, so he undoes the third one, too) and drags his still icy fingertips across Taiga’s chest to his nipples, tweaking them but then just letting his cold fingers rest against them until Taiga makes a noise, jerks his hips, pulls away. Tatsuya reaches down, undoing the rest of the buttons with one hand and skimming his fingers over Taiga’s abs with the other; he’s heating up again but staying out of the danger zone, at least for now.  
  
Tatsuya lets his hand dip lower and lower. Yeah, it’s going to be heating up again soon; Tatsuya wills the moisture in the air to condense and freeze over Taiga’s skin and presses another kiss to his mouth.  
  
“Easy.”  
  
(It’s not going to be, but that’s the way they like it.)


	75. kagahimu, rockstar au

Taiga could write a box set worth of albums about Tatsuya, and still have material left over. All of his songs already are, in some way, about Tatsuya, trying to evoke some technique Tatsuya had used long ago, the roughness of his first studio album and the bootleg mixtape, or written consciously and baldly about him, about how wonderful and encouraging and gorgeous and generous he is, about what it means to stand onstage as his equal. About the stuff they’ve shared, too, but that’s a little more private, a little too close to Taiga’s heart.  
  
He’ll sing it all; he wants to show Tatsuya off to the world, but there are some things he likes knowing are just for them. Tatsuya before he wakes up, sprawled out awkwardly in bed, stubble on his cheeks, hand reaching out toward Taiga (only vaguely hinted at in lyrics). Tatsuya in the kitchen, making a huge mess out of everything but managing to bake the perfect cake or quiche or lasagna. The first time Tatsuya had kissed him, finally fed up with Taiga’s hinting and beating around the bush, the thing that Taiga had hoped for but hadn’t dared to go for himself.   
  
“I wrote a song for you,” Taiga murmurs, kissing Tatsuya on the side of the head.   
  
“You use that line a lot?” says Tatsuya, smile tugging at his lips.  
  
“No, I wrote it for you to sing. I thought it would suit your voice, and—it’s about us. The first time we kissed. Sort of.”  
  
“I’m sure I can’t sing it from your perspective, not with the feeling you can—it would be bad for sales; you could probably move it up a few steps and—”  
  
“It’s not about sales,” says Taiga, trying to be as firm as he can. “I don’t want to record this. Not for anyone but you. I don’t want to share this part of you with anyone.”  
  
It comes out wrong, Taiga thinks, a different kind of possessive than he’s meaning to convey, except Tatsuya’s not about to rebuff him again. He stands there, opens his mouth, and then.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
It sounds like the wind’s knocked out of him, like he can’t fathom what to say. Like Taiga had left him breathless, even though Tatsuya’s the one who’s always left him breathless, watching him perform in a video and then onstage, meeting him that first time and then as a musician and then the way Tatsuya had kissed him, that first time, intense and firm and real and conveying every bit of certainty that he’d returned Taiga’s feelings that Taiga had been searching for the whole time.  
  
“Play it for me?” Tatsuya manages, finally.  
  
“Sure,” says Taiga, leaning in to kiss Tatsuya first, sweet and slow and a little bit distracting, before Tatsuya pushes him away and his gaze says I want to hear that song right now, which, okay, Taiga can take a hint.


	76. kagahimu, treasure planet au

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” Taiga tells him, and Tatsuya nods (he wouldn’t expect that; he doesn’t deserve that, not now and maybe not ever, for everything). “I love you, though, so.”  
  
He pulls Tatsuya through the doorframe, all that exists of the house he’s building, materials chopped down from the mediocre land given to them by the colonists’ kindness and a promise to pay it back and forward, the help Tatsuya’s given them with their own mechanics even before he’d started to pay off the debt for fixing the detonator in his chest. It’s hollow, now, but Taiga always seems to fill it, like the ocean seeping through the cracks in a badly-made rowboat. But right now he’s held against Taiga’s chest, fully human, the doorframe above them, high enough and promising higher ceilings that they will build. Maybe a second floor, someday, Taiga says, and Tatsuya catches himself agreeing. He fits his arms around Taiga’s waist and he feels like his chest is so full it’s about to burst.   
  
*  
  
Taiga no longer talks about the father he was going to bring the treasure back to, the planet he was supposed to return to, the home on which he would bridge the gap to paradise. Tatsuya doesn’t want to bring it up, but sooner or later he drags it into a fight, because he’s always got to be stuffing his mouth with his foot.  
  
“Don’t you get it?” Taiga says, and then breaks off, gesturing to Tatsuya, to the house they’d built, the room around them, the shelves Taiga had sanded down and Tatsuya had nailed to the wall, and oh, fuck.  
  
Tatsuya wants to ask if it’s a compromise he’s had to make, but he already knows the answer.   
  
“It’s hard,” Taiga says, quietly. “But I’m not trading you for anything. I thought I already proved it.”  
  
Tatsuya can’t look away from the ground; it’s like he keeps failing the same goddamn test, except every time he still keeps Taiga.  
  
*  
  
This isn’t a mythical paradise, draped in gold and silver and myth. It’s not the thing people chase forever; it’s not the thing for which anyone would try and blow themself up. It’s better than anything Tatsuya could have ever pursued or dreamed up, better than the riches and the tantalizing treasures that had haunted his dreams year after year. But it’s him and Taiga and a home they’ve carved out themselves, a relationship reinforced with gold and copper wires, carefully navigated. Forgiveness where the point isn’t whether or not Tatsuya had deserved it, but that Taiga had wanted him to take it. The opposite end of the galaxy from where they’d started, maybe, but it seems fitting how far they’ve come.


	77. kagahimu, ballroom au

Alex probably never had to tell them to look like they were in love in the first place. Taiga had probably been doing it all along, even when he hadn’t wanted to let himself; maybe Tatsuya had wanted that kind of permission but it’s not like Taiga can pretend not to see it once he’s started. The way Tatsuya looks a second too long, the ghost of a smile on his lips, his hand so snugly in Taiga’s even before they had admitted anything.  
  
Once, Taiga had heard about ballroom dancing couples doing better, knowing each other in every sense, people whose shared love of dance had led them to a love of each other. More, many times since then, he has heard of dancing that rips couples apart, the anger that simmers beneath the swift crack of their shoes against the wood floors, holding each other close with intensity in their eyes that could be mistaken for love, focus for adoration. He had asked Alex about that and she had sighed and told him that people remember the drama more than they remember the happy stories, because happy stories can seem boring and draw jealousy when they don’t happen to you.   
  
It’s not that he and Tatsuya don’t fight; even in the middle of competitions they’ve argued about stupid shit, less stupid shit, serious shit. It doesn’t make them love each other any less; it doesn’t make them any less willing to cooperate and compete; it doesn’t change the intensity in their eyes and doesn’t make the yearning as they swap outfits in the dressing room any less intense, at least on Taiga’s end. (They always make up before they have sex, though; sex isn’t a problem solver or anything that can stave off the feelings.) And while a win can smooth things over, especially when they’re fighting about dance-related stuff, it’s never enough on its own.   
  
But always, the fighting never wears down the base of trust that’s there, the trust that Tatsuya has in Taiga to lift him up in the air over his head like it’s effortless, spin him out and dip him back, the trust that Taiga has in Tatsuya to do his moves in a mirror, dance backwards first and then push the courage forward for him to move backwards. The shaking muscles, aching feet with blisters from shoes that haven’t quite worn in yet, reciprocal care to the bodies that don’t look quite so flawless out from under the lights and glitter.


	78. aokagahimu, royalty au

Taiga supposes it's only because he knows Tatsuya so well that he sees right through him so easily. Daiki doesn’t, and he can’t be that dumb to have made it this far in the royal guards, for him to be competent enough to trust with Tatsuya in his hands. Taiga supposes he’s both privileged and cursed with this, but it’s not like there’s a reason to keep it to himself, not after the third night in a row that Tatsuya excuses himself, egging the two of them on just have a night in by themselves because he’s too tired out from royal duty (the thinnest excuse Taiga’s ever heard, but Daiki seems to accept it).   
  
“You do realize what he’s doing?” says Taiga, as they sit in the antechamber just outside of Tatsuya’s bedroom.  
  
“What?” says Daiki.  
  
Taiga sighs. “He’s trying to set us up, take himself out of the equation.”  
  
“Um,” says Daiki. “What? Does he have like, some long-ago betrothed or something like that?”  
  
“No,” says Taiga. “There’s none of that sort of pressure on him. It’s just...if he sees a chance to pull this kind of shit, he’s going to do it. Like, put yourself in his shoes, you know, you’re the prince, country comes before everything else and all that. I was raised to sacrifice everything for him, and this is kind of his way of trying to repay—and, like.”   
  
Taiga sighs; there’s too much to explain and it’s all connected, no one part that really comes first. It’s just all there, dependent on itself in a circle, closer to a messy ball of yarn. But Daiki looks at him like he gets the gist of it, and Taiga’s not going to tell him he knew he was smart. So he presses a brief kiss to Daiki’s mouth instead.   
  
“We have to talk with him about it, you know.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Daiki. “Shit. How can he—we dedicated ourselves to him; how does he get that idea?”  
  
“He doesn’t think we don’t want him, more like there always has to be a catch if he’s happy. Because that’s what royalty is, catches and exchanges.”  
  
“But we’re like, the opposite of that.”  
  
“I know,” says Taiga. “It’s just.”  
  
Daiki shrugs. “We’ll get him to listen.”  
  
Taiga smiles. He’s going to have to need a hell of a lot of that stark confidence to deal with Tatsuya and all of his complications and preemptive bargaining, but, well. Tatsuya had picked a good one, so Taiga kisses him again. For luck, but also just because.


	79. kagahimu, all is you

They did the whole thing out of order, but it’s not like life is a series of steps that go in sequence. They know that much already, at least, going all the way back to the days when it was just the two of them playing streetball until dark together, really. You’re supposed to meet and go on a date and have sex and fall in love and get to know each other, except they’d met and gotten to know each other and fallen in love and had sex and only now, two months after they’d started spending all the time together they could, are they going on their first official date.   
  
Yes, the wedding had come near the end of the summer and they’d had training camp and basketball keeping them apart until now, but they could have just gotten it done right then, gone somewhere low key and bumped knees under the table because this was all so new. It’s still all so new, and Taiga wonders if that’s going to wear off. Probably some day, but he’d like to think there are infinite things to discover in Tatsuya, not enough to cram into their lifetimes even though they’re going to live until they’re at least a hundred and ten.   
  
Instead of going straight to Tatsuya’s place, Taiga had gone back to the hotel to change into jeans and a hoodie; he sprays a little cologne on and hopes he doesn’t run into any of his teammates on the way down or he’ll never hear the end of it (hey, at least they're not going to this date on the subway, as much as Tatsuya would go for that; Tatsuya’s worth at least a cab on every date). He tells the cabbie to stop outside of Tatsuya’s room; it’s drizzling and Tatsuya under the half-burned lights on the front of his building, the rain dotting the air like freckles, sucks the air out of Taiga’s lungs.   
  
“What?” says Tatsuya.  
  
“Where you going?” says the cabbie.  
  
“168 and Broadway.”  
  
The cabbie sighs, and Taiga just looks at Tatsuya, trying to breathe and give him the answer just like this. Tatsuya smiles at him, soft and real in the dark and Taiga swallows.   
  
“You smell pretty good,” Tatsuya says as they get out of the cab.   
  
Taiga doesn’t really remember how the wings he gets taste, or the beer he gets or Tatsuya’s, which he gets a sip of, or the coffee they buy afterwards, but all of that is incidental, because all he wants to remember is Tatsuya.


	80. aomurakagahimu, basketball in the rain

Taiga doesn’t say it, but Daiki knows he’s thinking it. It’s not as fun without Tatsuya there to compete with them, push them both quicker on both offense and defense, Tatsuya who won’t let go and won’t rest until they all go all-out. With Tatsuya’s broken rib and pinned-together elbow, though, it's impossible for him to play like this (Taiga doesn’t like to even think about it in passing; he can’t, the fucking stupid drunk driver sliding into him back in LA and he could have had it way worse but he could have been not hit in the first place; he probably won't even be back until a month before the playoffs at this rate, and now he’s uselessly angry all over again). Thunder cracks overhead, the weather all of a sudden empathetic to his mood (it is here in New York more than it is in Chicago, more than in LA when it’s always dry heat, maybe about the same as in Tokyo if he were to really think about it). It’s been oppressively humid all day, the clouds moving in from Jersey, and now they’re here and now it’s fucking pouring.   
  
Taiga slams in a dunk, Daiki raising his eyebrows.   
  
“That one doesn’t count.”  
  
“You score enough, it won’t,” says Taiga.  
  
He plays sloppy when he’s angry because he’s not really focused, because his mind’s elsewhere, and Daiki capitalizes it, making him nearly slip in the rain and skidding past him to get a few nice jumpers in. It’s enough to make Taiga calm down, though, the adrenaline seeping out of him and the rain seeping in, warm and heavy and gross.   
  
“Can we go in?”  
  
“Yeah,” says Daiki. “Since I won and all.”  
  
He kisses Taiga firmly, grabbing his ass while he’s at it, and whispering (barely above the pounding of the rain and the clap of thunder—okay, now it’s getting dangerous, getting nearer) that Tatsuya’s safe now and it’s all okay.   
  
He is, ordering them to the bathroom and rolling his eyes and Taiga feels guilty all over again because he knows Tatsuya would be the last one out as the thunder and lightning get nearer and nearer, trying to coax him and Daiki (and Atsushi, who might end up coming along even if he complains the whole way) to stay out with him, and Daiki will say that Atsushi’s the one who’s going to be struck by lightning and then they’ll argue but they’re a long way from that, so Taiga follows Daiki to the bathroom.


	81. garciraki, after tomorrow

“I could get used to this,” Masako whispers into Alex’s hair, and Alex tries not to freeze up.  
  
Instead, she rolls back, trying to get a good look at Masako, hair pulled away from her face, the way she’s looking at Alex, gaze not too sharp or pointed but studying her, as always. Not overly analytical, just in the way she notices. It’s one of the biggest pieces of Masako Alex misses when she’s not there, the thing she doesn’t get, the steady warmth of Masako’s eyes on her. The way Masako says honest things like this in a way that's almost unfair, all the strings attached to it that Masako knows perfectly well. This is not the halting confusion of the early days of their relationship, one of them saying one thing and the other interpreting another; this is intentional implication.  
  
She could get used to this, being with Alex, lazy days on the beach or lying in bed or eating, playing on the street courts at their leisure. She could get used to being here with Alex, here in LA, across the ocean and so far south from the only place she’s ever really called home, here where she doesn’t know English or Spanish all that well (she’s learning; she’s come a long way but still). A leap of faith, one that might be easier for Alex to do back the other way based on logistics, a steadier job and an entire life that Masako would uproot.   
  
“Not tomorrow,” Masako says, kissing up Alex’s jaw to her hairline. “Some day.”  
  
“Someday never comes.”  
  
“The day after tomorrow, then,” says Masako. “Soon.”  
  
Her hands thread through Alex’s, squeezing; any life they share will not simply be idyllic days of relaxing on the beach. Those will happen, interspersed with more mundane routines, putting too much or too little cream in each other’s coffee in the mornings, petty arguments and days when they’re too tired to talk at dinner and go to bed early and don’t fall asleep talking, aren’t in the mood for sex either. They have those days when they’re apart, when they don’t call and the distance sits between them, not too heavy but obviously present. Those days will still happen here, but interspersed among the beaches and basketball games and walks together, within arm’s reach of each other, the nights they go to sleep quietly in the same bed, to the rhythm of each other’s shifts and breathing.


	82. nijihimu, stubborn

The problem with them both, Tatsuya thinks to himself, is the fact that they're both just as hotheaded and stubborn as each other. They don’t like to admit when they’re wrong, and Tatsuya at least doesn’t like to be the first one to crack even when he knows it’s his fault. Shuu’s slightly better at that, out of long-held habits he can’t shake about keeping things together and being a little bit afraid of Tatsuya running off and doing something stupid. They’re a long way away from that, but Tatsuya can’t really say he blames Shuu for that (another thing that’s his fault, but this he’ll admit, for having been such a goddamn difficult teenager).   
  
Tatsuya had wanted to leave to get some fresh air right after they’d fought but that’s the coward’s way out and he still doesn’t want to worry Shuu, so he’d waited an hour and closed the door quietly behind him instead of slamming it because he’s an adult, and gone to the bodega and eaten a mediocre turkey sandwich in the median and watched the cars pass him by and ignored the old man asking if he could spare a cigarette or money to buy some because he doesn’t really feel like talking to anyone.  
  
Except for Shuu, with whom he’s only going to argue, only wants to argue the same points over and over again, going nowhere until their throats are raw from shouting, but he still gets up and throws the waxed paper in the trash and goes back home and doesn’t talk to Shuu there, until he can’t stand it anymore and he can hear the coffee grinder in the kitchen. He stands in the doorway for a second, watches the tension in Shuu’s shoulders, the way he slaps the coffee grinder to get all the loose grounds out.   
  
“Shuu,” Tatsuya says and then Shuu’s reaching for him, and Tatsuya takes the offered hand and they pull each other into a hug.  
  
It’s not enough to solve the issues; it’s a start and it says they’re both at least willing to go from there. Somewhere.   
  
“I’m sorry,” says Tatsuya. “I wish I knew when to stop, instead of just poking at things and making them worse."   
  
Shuu sighs. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do.”  
  
“I’m sorry anyway,” says Tatsuya, keeping his breath steady; he apologizes too much and not enough and in the wrong ways and—  
  
“I accept,” says Shuu, kissing his forehead, and Tatsuya shuts his eyes briefly against Shuu’s shoulder.


	83. garciraki, bubblegum

Masako wins her one on one easily, like she could have done it spotting her opponent five points and he swears at her afterwards and pretends he let her win, but Masako just stares at him, her gaze cooler than the shade in Akita on a rainy fall evening, and from her vantage on the bleachers Alex probably couldn’t see it anyway but she still expects his breath to fog up in the air.   
  
She’s not playing today herself, a strained hamstring and the wrong clothes take care of that (when she was younger, or even now if she was feeling reckless enough, she might give it a go, but she knows Masako’s going to scold or forcibly hold her out, and she doesn’t mind not playing so much when it means she gets to watch Masako, the grace of her motion and the ruthlessness of her defense, as a spectator rather than an opponent or a teammate). Alex snaps the piece of bubble gum in her mouth and adds another; the artificial watermelon flavor is cloyingly sweet but it stretches out on her tongue and softens up easy, and she needs something to do while she watches. Masako looks up to her, cocking her head, and instead of taking someone else’s challenge she makes her way up to the back row.  
  
“Nice game,” says Alex, offering over a piece of gum.  
  
“Thanks,” says Masako, whether it’s for the gum or the compliment or both left unspecified, popping the gum into her mouth and watching as Alex blows a bubble.  
  
Alex drops her arm around Masako’s shoulders and thinks that perhaps the gum had been a bad idea, any kiss she leaves on Masako’s cheek is going to be the wrong kind of sticky (though having Masako get annoyed at her like this could be fun) and they’re not going to be able to rally kiss each other. But it’s not like they’re so short on time that this makes a difference, and she can still get a kick out of telling Masako she likes watching the way her mouth moves.   
  
The next game starts; Alex snaps her gum again and Masako blows a bubble. They watch as the two men (boys, really, they’re that young) posture at each other and fake left and right. So it’s one of those games; maybe they’ll try to dunk. Alex sighs; her peripheral vision’s shit but not so much that she can’t see Masako looking at her out of the corner of her eye, and that’s enough to make her smile again.


	84. remix of a blessed fill [kagahimu]

“Anything for you, Tatsuya,” Taiga says, and even though he’s just rolled his eyes (because chocolate strawberries, really?) he hasn’t meant anything so much tonight, nothing so much in a long time, no long shot at the buzzer or block in the dying seconds, no decisive dunk or words over the phone.   
  
It would be anything for Tatsuya if it wasn’t their anniversary, but Taiga’s okay with celebrating their anniversary every day (without the part about too much chocolate, maybe) if it’s like this. If it means having sex on every surface and then some, carrying Tatsuya in his arms and seeing Tatsuya blink up at him in a haze of pre and mid and post coital bliss, Tatsuya pouring champagne on him and kissing and touching his body through the bubbles until they’re a different kind of sticky all over again, and then they hop into the jacuzzi until they’re almost dehydrated and, well.  
  
It’s really no surprise they wake up hungover, all things considered (and all things being how drunk and dehydrated they’d been when they’d fallen asleep, how much they’d had to drink in the first place, how little sleep they’d gotten) and it might be a surprise that it isn’t worse, not that it’s not plenty bad enough already. On the subway ride down to Penn Station Taiga feels like he’s about to puke as the train sways, getting over it by putting his head between his legs as Tatsuya rubs his back and tells the concerned old lady across from them that he'll be fine and he’d just had a rough night is all.   
  
He’s feeling more hungry than nauseous by the time they get off at 34th, and when they reach Shake Shack he’s fucking ravenous. They don’t get quite the usual amount of food (a dozen double smoke shacks, a dozen double shack burgers, a dozen regular fries, with a whole bottle of hot sauce on the side for Tatsuya to dip his fries in—gross, in Taiga’s opinion, but the taste of the burgers ought to cover that the next time they kiss each other).  
  
“You’re a freak of nature, you know that?” says Tatsuya.  
  
“Whatever,” says Taiga. “Want another?”  
  
He tosses the one closest to him over to Tatsuya, and Tatsuya peels back the greasy wrapper to chomp down on it, sauce sticking to the corners of his mouth. It’s so fucking cute Taiga wants to lick it all off, an intrusive thought that’s better off left to last night. But still, if he can’t quite do that kind of thing in public, he can still spoil Tatsuya with burgers and fries and yes, hot sauce. And a few of those raspberry cheesecake shakes, while they’re at it.


	85. kagahimu, in the club

They'd gone home as a couple last time, almost. At least, together in the way they hadn’t been when they’d arrived, hands all over each other, alcohol mingling from their breaths, the bass line thumping in the soles of Taiga’s shoes long after they’d left the club, his body still tingling all over, especially where Tatsuya had been touching him. It’s been a month since then and they haven’t gone out; Taiga would say it’s because they’re too enamored of each other and that might be true. Specifically, they’re caught up in looking and touching, something they haven’t been explicitly allowed to do this way with each other before and there’s years of catching up to do there.   
  
But there’s years of catching up on clubbing as a couple, too, of not just going home with their hands all over each other but getting ready together, picking outfits and giving each other approving looks in various states of half dress, pregaming together and Taiga kissing off cheap vodka as it runs down Tatsuya’s chin, then kissing his nose and then his mouth, bitter and numb with alcohol. It feels good when they can both feel like hot messes, when Tatsuya’s still pretending to be in total control but he really isn’t, steady on his feet but looking at Taiga like his gaze is being dragged across Taiga’s skin and Taiga understands the meaning of eyes raking across your body, because yeah, that’s what it feels like, a pleasant scrape like Tatsuya’s filed-down fingernails against his skin.   
  
They don’t dance with anyone else; they don’t have to, matching each other’s steps one to one, bodies grinding together, Taiga spinning Tatsuya in his arms so they can bump and dance like they’re teenagers trying to get racy at a middle school dance, except they didn’t have dubstep when they were in middle school and they were both twenty times as awkward (which for Tatsuya isn’t all that much, but still, or maybe that had just been Taiga’s perception at the age of twelve). Right now, Taiga’s probably an awkward drunk but he doesn’t give a shit, kissing up and down Tatsuya’s jawline in time with the music to make him laugh and grind his ass harder up against Taiga. Taiga squeezes it in his hand, and they both sigh at once, and yeah there’s a reason they don’t do this, maybe, because now all Taiga wants to be is home where he can press sloppy kisses all over Tatsuya’s body and hum the shitty dubstep on the speakers in his head.


	86. kagahimu, jersey shore au

They hold hands all the way down to the water, Taiga so tightly like he’s never going to let Tatsuya go, not like he’s afraid of what will happen when he does but because he doesn’t want to, like he wants to keep Tatsuya here with him just because he does. It had taken Tatsuya a while to get used to it, but it’s always been there, the unconditional way Taiga just wants him there, that even if he keeps fucking up and stumbling over himself Taiga will be there for him. It’s too heavy to think of right now when he could go for another overpriced margarita, or when it’s probably better for them to just walk down to the beach. It’s getting dark out, quicker now. The summer always seems so short, so full of missed opportunities, even when all of these days blend together like frozen lemonade.  
  
The water is lapping at their feet, and Taiga scoops Tatsuya up, lifting his feet above the gentle waves.  
  
“Don’t drop me in,” Tatsuya says, nuzzling at Taiga’s neck.  
  
“Don’t give me ideas, huh,” says Taiga, holding him closer and going in for a kiss.   
  
Tatsuya slides back down, his feet sinking in the soft sand, and he closes his eyes and leans against Taiga, one hand slipping into Taiga’s pack pocket. Taiga makes a noise in the back of his throat, like he’s really trying not to sound pleased and it’s not working at all. It’s cute; Tatsuya laughs and squeezes Taiga’s ass, pumping his other hand on Taiga’s hip, letting it rest there, thinking about reaching under Taiga’s shirt.  
  
“We’re still in public,” Taiga says.  
  
“People do sleazier shit,” says Tatsuya. “If you look real close, you can see the teenagers puking over there.”  
  
“Ew,” says Taiga. “Food poisoning or too much alcohol?”  
  
“Why not both?” says Tatsuya, and then he slips his fingers up against Taiga’s warm skin, sighing at the contact.  
  
“We’re going to get all sandy,” says Taiga.  
  
“We already are,” says Tatsuya, flicking some sand from under his feet at Taiga’s ankle, though it’s probably less effective underwater.   
  
“Hey,” says Taiga.   
  
Then he says it again, his voice softer, turning slowly to kiss Tatsuya. They’re a bucket of cliches, sunset kisses by the water and sex on the beach at the shore, too much hair gel and beer spilled on both of them earlier by some clumsy frat boys who look like they’re on roids. There’s not that much of summer left, but they’re going to cling onto it while it’s here, before it disappears completely.


	87. kikasa, whispering through the stars

The universe is a lonely place. Lovers, soul mates, companions, people on Yukio’s planet have them here. Yukio’s got friends, a brother, sure, but he always falls lower on their hierarchy of importance and that’s just the way it is, the way it’s going to be. Some nights, though, he listens to the stars, hears whispers from light years away, another planet orbiting another star. The name Ryouta, as if spoken in a code. Secrets, from the small and childish about stealing someone else’s idea and perfecting it to the larger, about how lonely he feels, something that Yukio feels resonating him a chord struck perfectly through the body of a guitar. As if the secrets of the stars are in response to the secrets he has given them.  
  
He thinks that Ryouta must be frivolously beautiful from the way he speaks of things, from the way he acts, or says he does. A gorgeous voice, a light laugh, airy fingers. At Yukio’s lowest, he imagines them brushing over his skin. He’s pathetic; he’s lonely; he’s waiting all night for another whisper from the stars, brushing close to his heart as they always do. And Yukio stops whispering his own trivial secrets to the stars and starts replying.  
  
Sound travels slower than light; these replies may never reach Ryouta (if this works like physics and Yukio is beginning to believe it doesn’t). Still, he dispenses advice, telling Ryouta to be as honest with others as he is with the stars, at least half as honest. Agreeing with his loneliness. Shared loneliness might be even worse to feel, because they’re across galaxies where they cannot touch, where despite the potential, the massive potential like the inside of the core of a star, there is no real capacity to go anywhere. They will never leap among the stars, meeting each other, and perhaps it’s for the better. Perhaps they’ve built each other up into these ethereal sorts of beings, set too much on each other’s shoulders that they cannot feel through a whisper and a name. Perhaps they would be massive disappointments for each other, their voices sounding all wrong without the mouthpieces of the stars. Perhaps there’s no Ryouta at all, just the wanton cruelty of the cosmos, fooling Yukio into staying all night to stare at something that doesn’t exist.  
  
Perhaps, considering how short a human life is, none of this really matters in the scheme of things.


	88. aokise, never fair

Kise smiles, thinking about a movie. A woman staring in the mirror and doing her lips blood red, about to die, singing about her heart breaking but smiling still. He’s not the star of a musical; he’s not dying of something modern medicine has long since solved; his own breakup is already over, except it’s not, creeping back into his fingers, glaring at him in a headline, the pieces of their relationship crumbled and torn to shreds by the paparazzi, endless speculation even though none of it’s true. They can’t hit the marks blind, not when the marks are hidden and moving behind shields. Not when even Aomine had been too dumb to realize it was coming.  
  
That’s harsh, but it’s easier to think of things like this, to make it seem like it’s all for the best. It is all for the best, and Kise smiles, places his hand on the other model’s shoulder as he’s directed, stares into her half-lidded brown eyes. Her lips are parted. He thinks about the contours of her face, the brand of foundation she had probably used. What is this even a campaign for?   
  
Since the breakup it’s all been like this. Everything fading into the background, seeming more unimportant, shades of dreary grey as Kise’s smile grows wider and wider, faker and brighter by the minute. The lure of a deep sea fish, by the time you get close and realize it’s far too late. It’s too late to go back, to try and have another shot at that kind of happiness. It hadn’t been theirs to have, anyway; it wasn’t then and it isn’t now.  
  
Aomine’s probably drinking away his troubles, but he’s got Momoi to keep him from getting in too deep. She’d left him a voicemail about cleaning up his messes and depending on her and it had been harsh, but it’s not like he hadn’t deserved it (not that people get what they deserve in this world anyway). He knows which bars to avoid, which parts of the city Aomine’s likely to stick to, as if it’s their child and they’ve carved it up in a custody battle, taking what they will and battling over it. Kise had left Aomine the apartment, all of their shared things; the rest of the city, the downtown lights, the encroaching billboards, he’ll keep for himself. It’s not fair, but Kise’s never been fair.


End file.
